Buffy the vampire show
by Madcap13
Summary: What if when Angel’s curse was broken for the first time, he went straight back into his bedroom and turned Buffy?
1. 1a Happy birthday

Title: Buffy the vampire show.

Author: Madcap13

Summary: What if when Angel's curse was broken for the first time, he went straight back into his bedroom and turned Buffy? Starts in place of "Innocence" in season 2 of BTVS.

Warning: Violence, people getting bitten, adult situations, people getting poked with wood and just about everything else you'd expect from the show.

Feedback: Any feedback would be more than welcome. Flames especially. Tell me I've been bad. I like it like that. :P

Author Notes: If you find anything that you feel could be an infraction of rules then by all means tell me so I can correct it. This story has already been taken down once and I don't want a repeat. Also, there's quite a bit of redux in the first ten or so chapters so consider yourself warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the vampire slayer and I make no money of this. Also, I will respect everyone in the morning.

O-O-O-O

Scene - Angel's unlit apartment.

Buffy stirred in her sleep then suddenly her eyes flashed open with worry.

Buffy, calling out at her lover's absence - "Angel?"

Angel, in the darkness – "I'm right here. I just went out for a snack."

Buffy relaxed as Angel moved under the covers, fitting into her from behind and wrapping his arms around her, trapping her in place.

Buffy, with equal parts humor and eagerness – "Again?"

Angel, whispering - "You're just so good. I've got to have you."

Buffy, whispering huskily back - "I'm yours."

Buffy looked back at Angel with heavy lidded eyes and with one hand he held her head that way.

Angel - "Do you love me?"

Buffy - "Yes. I love you. I need you so badly."

Angel - "Do you trust me?"

Buffy, without hesitation - "Yes."

Angel's face turned into his more demonic form and Buffy didn't even flinch.

Angel - "You want all of me?"

Buffy - "I want everything you'll give me."

Nudging her head slightly, Angel moved in closer and bit Buffy deeply on the neck. Buffy cried out but didn't make any move to stop him or struggle. Angel stopped himself from completely killing her as he bit his own wrist which he then offered up to Buffy. She held onto his arm gently with both of her tiny hands and started drinking, all while Angel bit into her neck again.

O-O-O-O

Spike's warehouse.

Spike, rolling up to Drusilla in his wheelchair - "What is it, pet? Is it about Angel again? Do you see anything more?"

Drusilla - "Not just Angel but the girl too."

Spike - "The Slayer? Tell me what you see?"

Drusilla - "The world is spinning. It's all abuzz. Angel is.."

Angel - "Here."

Angel laughed as he walked in casually with Buffy covered in bloody bed sheets.

Angel - "And I brought a gift."

Spike - "Oi! Judge! Burn that tosser to a crisp."

The Judge intercepted Angel, placing a hand on his chest.

Angel looked down at the hand then back up to the Judge with a smirk.

Angel - "Having performance problems?"

Judge, returning to his resting position - "This one cannot be burnt. He is clean."

Spike - "What do you mean he's clean? And who.. Is that the slayer?"

Angel nodded and tossed Buffy's dead body on to the table.

Drusilla - "Oh, my Angel! Have you really come home?"

Angel, wrapping her up in his arms - "Yeah baby. I'm back."

Drusilla purred as she kissed Angelus, the vampire who turned her.

Spike - "But how! And you killed the Slayer?"

Angel broke away from the kiss and laughed again.

Angel - "Spike, I think now I get what you've been about all these years. Ooh, that Slayer blood. I feel so alive. I'm going make this world fall to its knees and beg to be killed."

Spike, looking under the sheets at the dead Slayer - "And I keep going back to the part where I ask how did this happen? And you killed the Slayer? You?"

Angel - "I don't know how it happened but I'm back and that's what matters. And I didn't just kill her. I turned her. She should be popping back up any minute now. I can't wait to see how she turns out. She'll be my first childe in, oh, fifty years or more. I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl."

Spike - "You can't turn a Slayer. It's been tried by some of the best. Kakistos tried it. Even the Master tried it with that blonde in the thirties. You wouldn't remember her. She was a slippery one, I tell you. Not much of a fighter but she could run like heck. My point is it can't be done."

Angel - "I'm not that rusty. She's turned. I had her so juiced up that she didn't even struggle. Just between us guys, I think she'll give great head. It's just an impression I got."

Drusilla - "This is so wonderful. Both my boys are back with me. What fun we will have."

Spike - "With the Slayer on our side, killing her friends will be a piece of cake. Of course, she'll want to turn them. They always want to turn their friends."

Angel - "Not if I have anything to do with it. I'm going to rip Xander Harris's head straight off his shoulders. But I wouldn't mind turning the girls."

Spike, smiling in agreement - "Yeah. Wouldn't mind having a go with the redhead. She looks hot to trot."

Drusilla, child-like - "Can I have the watcher?"

Angelus and Spike both frowned.

Spike - "Why!"

Angelus - "You want to torture him, don't you?"

Drusilla, smiling as she thought about it - "Maybe a little."

Angel, kissing her on the forehead - "We'll see, baby. We'll see."

O-O-O-O

Sunnydale high school library, situated right over the hellmouth.

Giles, Jenny, Willow, Xander and Cordelia were in the library having an impromptu Scooby meeting in the absence of their strongest member.

Xander - "What's up? Where's Buffy?"

Willow, giving him a worried look - "She never checked in."

Giles - "If Angel failed to smuggle the box out of Sunnydale then I fear the Judge may have already been assembled. It's the only reason I can think of for there to be no word from them."

Xander - "Do you really think this Judge guy is already assembled? Wouldn't they need to do a ritual or a get a D-I-Y handbook or something, anything like that?

Giles - "I don't believe so."

Xander - "Then that means - Then we need to go to where they're holed up. That-that factory place. That's where they are, aren't they? Let's go."

Cordelia - "And do what? Besides be scream and die?"

Xander - "Nobody's asking you to come along. If the vampires need grooming tips, we'll know who to call."

Giles - "Cordelia is right. If Buffy and Angel were harmed then we don't stand to fare much better."

Xander - "Yeah? Well the people in the room who were born with feelings are going to do something about this."

Jenny, scolding - "Xander!"

Willow, shocked - "He's right. You people are all, um, uh, well, I don't know what you are because I'm too upset to think up a word but you're all that word and I'm going to the factory with or without your help."

Xander, defiantly - "Yeah."

Xander and his best friend started to walk out of the library when the phone rang.

Giles, picking up the receiver - "Hold on. That could be them. Oh, hello Angel. How good to hear from you… Oh, I take it you're both fine?"

Giles tried to pin Xander and Willow an I-told-you-so look but was too relieved for it to be any use. Giles look of relief turned quickly to concern.

Giles - "Is she okay?"

Everyone watched in silence until Giles sighed.

Giles - "Buffy's going to be okay and the judge isn't assembled. They couldn't get to the boat so they hid the arm in a crate posted to Alaska."

Xander - "When you say Buffy is going to be okay, you mean she isn't right now?"

Giles - "Apparently she was beaten quite badly. - Okay. Goodbye Angel. I'll see you then."

Giles put down the phone and looked up at the others.

Giles - "Once Buffy is back awake they're coming straight back here for a debriefing. Until then, most of us have classes."

Xander, opening the door for Willow and Cordelia - "Yeah yeah. We're leaving."

Jenny - "I should be going too."

O-O-O-O

Angel impatiently tapped the table Buffy's body was lying on.

Spike - "I think you've bollocks it up."

Angel, growling - "Shut up. I did everything right. She's just taking her time. I don't need to remind you that we waited a day and a half for you to wake up."

Spike - "Can't blame you. You're just out of practice."

Angel tapped the table a bit harder, looking a bit more intently at Spike.

Spike - "Plus, turning a Slayer? That's just unnatural somehow."

Angel, half sighing and half growling - "We're vampires. We ARE unnatural."

Then Buffy twitched just once.

Spike - "Dead bodies do that. Something about gas building up and being released. Muscular farts they're called."

Then Buffy's face gnarled up into a vampire's visage and she groaned in pain.

Angel - "Buffy. How do you feel?"

Buffy - "Have we been drinking? Cos my head hurts and I've got cramps in places you don't want to know about. I've gotta stop sleeping in these weird positions. Hey, where the heck are we? SPIKE?"

At that outburst, Buffy fell off the table, fumbling with numb limbs to get away from the wheel-chaired terror and wrap the bed sheets around her.

Angel, chuckling as he helped Buffy to her feet - "Buffy. It's okay."

Drusilla, creeping up on Buffy - "Yes. You're with family."

Buffy, in a state of shock - "Family?"

Angel - "You're one of us now."

Buffy's hand flashed up to where she was bitten and she gasped.

Buffy, breathlessly - "Vampire."

Angel - "You're getting it. Dru, why don't you get something for the young one to eat?"

Buffy felt her forehead tentatively then hid her face from Angel.

Buffy - "N-no. Don't look at me."

Angel, forcefully turning her back around - "No, you're beautiful. You're the way you were always meant to be."

Spike - "Actually, demon does suit her."

Buffy looked at Angel imploringly with her venomous yellow vampire eyes.

Buffy - "Angel, I-I cant."

Angel - "Hush now. You're just confused. And here's something that will make everything clear."

Drusilla tossed a squirming teenage girl onto the table and held her there. It wasn't hard to hold her there considering how much the girl was bound with duct tape. As she squirmed, Buffy couldn't help but be reminded of a worm wriggling on a hook. Angel picked Buffy up by the waist and plopped her down on the girl so she was straddling her.

Angel - "Feed."

At first Buffy looked at him oddly then Angel reinforced the command by saying it twice and pushing her head down towards the girl.

Angel - "Feed."

Buffy looked down blankly at the girl then dropped down and sank her teeth deep into her neck. Buffy wrapped her arms around the girl and held onto her as if she was trying to squeeze the blood out of her like a sponge. She moaned in contentment in between gulps as she sucked the life straight out of them and ground her hips against the other girl in some grotesque mimicry of love. The girl whimpered pitifully as her bones broke under the pressure until the blood loss let her fall into the blissful oblivion before death. With her legs now twisted up around the cold body beneath her, Buffy kept on sucking as she tried to get that little bit extra out.

Angel, to his other vampire minions - "See. She'll be a great vampire."

Angel ruffled some hair away from Buffy's face so he could see her eyes.

Angel - "Did you like that? Huh baby? Do you want more?"

Buffy's eyes fluttered open and she focused on Angel but kept her mouth clamped firmly around the now completely dead girl's neck.

Spike, grinning wickedly - "Yeah, I think she likes it."

Angel – "That's enough. Come on, let go. She's empty."

Buffy's mouth clicked open like a mouse trap as she moved off the corpse a trail of red drool trailed down her chin and splattered on her chest, mixing with her own bloodstains on her body. Looking down at her victim, she saw that it was now a mess of blood and exposed broken bones.

Angel, snarling in appreciation - "That was so hot."

Buffy, disorientated - "It was all for you."

The Judge - "She is still full of humanity. You should let me judge her now. She would make a fine meal."

Angel, snapping - "No, she won't! Besides, soon she won't have any humanity left. I'll take care of that. Don't you worry, big and blue."

Buffy, confused - "What'll you do to me?"

Angel sniggered and picked her off the table and held her in his arms.

Angel - "That's a surprise."

O-O-O-O

Library, several hours later.

Giles was doing some filing. It was obviously watcher related since no one actually used this library mid-term.

He turned around and yelped when Buffy and Angel appeared behind him.

Giles - "Good lord! Don't do that. You could give a man a hernia."

Giles frowned at the lack of response and noticed Buffy didn't even seem to register his existence.

Giles – "Buffy? Are you okay?"

Angel - "Yes. She's great. Isn't that right, baby?"

At Angel's voice, Buffy turned around to her sire and replied dutifully.

Buffy - "I'm fine."

Giles - "What happened with the judge's arm?"

Angel, as Giles turned to put his work away - "Well, it's a long story. But the long and the short of it is –"

Angel cut him self off to strike Giles on the back of the head, causing the watcher to collapse to the floor.

Angel picked Giles up easily and hefted him into the chair.

Angel, to Buffy - "What could we tie Giles up with?"

Buffy, with a genuinely vacant look – "Huh?"

Angel, yelling - "Rope! Or at least duct tape. Think girl."

Buffy - "Right. He keeps some with the weapons. I'll get it for you."

Angel, frowning - "I seriously hope you grow some brains, Buffy. I don't think I could live with someone so stupid for the rest of my exceedingly long life span."

Buffy, mumbling - "I'm sorry."

But Buffy quickly found the rope and gave it to Angel. Angel didn't reply. Instead he got to work tying Giles to the chair with Buffy looking on with confusion.

By the time he was done, Giles started waking up.

Angel, stooping to Giles' eye level - "Oh, Rupert. You should never turn your back on a vampire."

Giles, blinking at Angel - "Wh-what happened!"

Giles, to Buffy - "Buffy. What's going on?"

Buffy shrugged lifelessly. Angel kept looking at Giles and smiled.

Giles, in horror - "You-you're not Angel."

Angelus - "Wrong! I am Angel. At Last! The curse has finally been broken. I'm back to my good old self. And let me tell you, things are going to change around here."

Giles - "But how!"

With that, Angel took Buffy under his wing and kissed her gently on top of the head.

Angel - "Couldn't really say but I like to think it's got something to do with how I did the beast with two backs with Buffy here. Isn't that right, Sport?"

Buffy, looking up at him and still confused - "Huh?"

Angel, sighed and rolled his eyes - "God, she's been like this all night."

Giles - "What did you do to her!"

Angel smirked at Giles then looked down at Buffy, holding her face in his hands.

Angel – "Come on, baby. Show him your new face. Gimme a smile."

Buffy smiled a strangely satisfied smile and her game face sprung on which made Giles gasp.

Giles - "My lord! You .. You turned her? You-you fiend!"

Angel laughed at Giles' outrage and pushed Buffy forward a little.

Angel, to Buffy - "Tell him what you really think of him."

Buffy, apparently in a constant state of confusion - "Huh?"

Angel looked at her impatiently.

Angel - "We're going to kill him, you twit! You at least get that, don't you? So if you want to tell him how you hated being his lapdog for two years then now's the time. Unless you want to keep him alive for torture. That doesn't appeal to me though. He's just so old and British. I can tell it won't be any fun."

Buffy, nodding as if she was finally getting the idea - "Torture. Right."

Angel - "So IS there anything you want to tell him?"

Buffy, pouting at Giles - "You.. You stink."

Angel - "That's it? I know you can do better than that."

Buffy, frowning - "S-Sorry. This is all so new. I can't just be mean to him."

Angel held her chin up towards him and looked her squarely in the eyes. Buffy held his gaze as if hypnotized.

Angel - "He trained you to die. He coerced you to go out every night and put your life on the line for people who don't know you and don't care a scrap about you. Slayers only last a few years because Watchers only watch. Whole boardrooms of them sit on their behinds and watch little girls die. Little girls like you who fall prey to vampires like me."

This brought a flicker of anger from Buffy and she growled.

Angel seemed to like this and nudged Buffy towards Giles once more.

Angel - "So go on, give him a piece of your mind."

Buffy walked forward and grabbed Giles by the hair, pulling back his head and growling at him.

Giles, not talking to the Buffy in front of him - "Buffy, I'm so sorry."

Buffy, woodenly - "You were like my father. But you let me die. You stood back and watched me die. You remember that, don't you? Oh, it's a prophesy, it's foretold and no one can stop it. I'm so fricken disposable! Tell me, did you even cry for me?"

When Giles didn't answer, Buffy shook his head and yelled at him.

Buffy - "Did you cry for me? Huh?"

Giles, defeated - "Yes."

Buffy, growling at him - "Then you won't mind crying a little more then, will you?"

Buffy walked over to the weapon cabinet while Angel stood there, laughing.

Angel, cheerfully – "Hey, I think she might have some talent after all."

Buffy looked at a few swords and daggers, dropping each to the ground with disappointment. Eventually she took a simple wooden baseball bat and twirled it a little with a smile.

Buffy - "Yeah. This will do just fine."

Angel, with humor - "I didn't know you were a baseball fan."

Buffy - "The biggest."

Angel, as Buffy lined up for a swing - "And Giles, if it gets a bit much for you, just close your eyes and think of England."

Then Buffy smashed the baseball bat across the back of Angel's head, knocking him out cold and breaking the bat in two. After that, Buffy just stared at the sharp piece of broken bat in her hands and Giles just stared at her.

Giles - "Buffy? Is.. Is that really you?"

Buffy - "Giles. What's going on? Is.. Is this hell?"

Giles, strictly - "Buffy!"

Buffy - "Yes?"

Giles - "Untie me. Now!"

Buffy, hesitantly - "Okay."

Then Buffy started untying Giles from the chair. Once she untied one hand, Giles quickly untied the other and then freed himself from the chair and stepped back, giving Buffy a wide berth.

Buffy, sounding a little lost - "Giles. I'm sorry about what I said. I.. Angel, he's changed. I don't know who he is anymore."

Giles nodded and kept stepping back until he reached his desk and picked something off it.

Buffy, suddenly growling - "Do you really think you could stake me? That's what you're thinking of doing, isn't it?"

Giles - "Buffy, you don't realize what's happened to you."

Buffy, frowning - "Are we in a nightmare again?"

Giles, shaking his head - "No."

Buffy touched her forehead and then covered her face, turning away from Giles.

Taking this as an opening, Giles crept forward and Buffy spun around and growled at him again.

Buffy - "Don't! We need to fix this! There's got to be a way. How do we do it?"

Giles - "I don't think we can fix this. There's only one way to resolve this."

Buffy stared at the stake in his hands and shook her head.

Buffy - "No. We're going to do something else. I'm not dying here."

Giles considered this.

Giles - "Umm. How about you tie Angel up while I phone some people?"

Buffy - "Okay. Do that. We need to fix this before I get hungry again."

O-O-O-O

Giles was on the phone when Willow, Oz, Cordelia and Xander came in for research.

The first thing they saw was Angel tied to the chair. Willow ran forwards to free the vampire.

Giles and Buffy in unison - "Don't!"

Willow - "Giles. Why is Angel tied up? And why is Buffy in the cage?"

Giles, calmly addressing everyone - "Something horrific has happened. I think it's best if we all sat down before we go over it."

Angel, asking Giles - "Going to explain the birds and bees to them? In our day we found out about that on the street and we grew up okay."

Xander walked towards the cage to free Buffy and she growled at him. He instinctively pratfall back and scrambled away.

Cordelia, laughing at him - "Xander, you oaf. It's just – OH GOD! Buffy's a vampire?"

Buffy, still with her gameface on - "I guess there's a brain in there after all."

Xander - "What the hell is going on?"

Giles, calmly - "Buffy's a vampire."

Xander, sarcastic and overstressed - "Oh right. Buffy's a vampire. Everything is fine and oh! Buffy's a VAMPIRE! What the hell, man?"

Willow, hopefully - "Is it a spell?"

Giles - "I'm afraid not. She's really is a vampire."

Xander, asking Giles - "Are you a vampire too?"

Giles - "What?"

Xander - "It's a sensible question. She's a vampire and yet you seem fine with this."

Giles - "I assure you that I am not a vampire."

Xander, sounding a little paranoid - "But how could we tell?"

Giles rolled his eyes and held up the large wooden cross hanging from his neck.

Oz - "I guess he's not a vampire."

Xander, nodded in panic - "Okay, I concede, Giles is not a vampire but I keep finding myself going back to my original question, what the hell? I mean, look at her!"

Buffy turned around so they couldn't. Giles took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose before explaining.

Giles – "Last night, Angelus was freed of his curse and he went back to the vampire he once was. One of his first acts was to turn Buffy."

Willow - "So Buffy's now evil?"

Giles - "I would believe so."

Xander didn't hear any of that. Instead he was glaring at Angelus. Some boiling point was reached inside Xander and he rushed the bound vampire, knocking the chair over backwards and the boy started pounding into the vampires face.

No one said anything but Giles walked over and extracted the boy off the fiend.

Xander, pushing Giles off him - "Hey! He killed Buffy! Why don't we just kill him?"

Giles - "Because we could re-curse him."

Xander - "Re-curse him? Why? Just so he can lose it again and kill someone else? Who will it be this time? Me? You? Would it make you feel better if it was someone we don't know?"

Angel, chuckling from the floor - "Actually, I was thinking of Willow."

Before Xander could really dig into the vampire again, Giles held him back. Although, Xander did manage to get one good kick in.

Oz - "Can I ask a question?"

Giles - "Yes?"

Oz - "Why is Buffy in the cage? You know it's got a window? Also, we store our weapons in it."

Giles – "She's staying in there by her choice. Some vampires retain personality traits of their hosts. Her vampire self seems to have retained Buffy's affinity for her friends but not her self control. To put a finer point on it, she's in there because she doesn't want to hurt us."

Suddenly Buffy slammed against the cage again and growled.

Buffy - "Giles! I'm REALLY getting hungry in here."

Angel - "I wonder who she'll drain when she can't take anymore. I'm guessing she'll go for Cordelia."

Cordelia – "Me? Why me!"

Angel - "It's either you or Giles."

Cordelia looked at Giles and glared at Angel.

Cordelia - "Oh no. She would go for me. I am so much more appetizing than some stuffy old English guy."

Giles ignored this and Oz shook his head with a worried look.

Oz - "No. I think she'll go for Willow."

Xander, grimacing - "You don't need to say that just because you're dating her. You really don't."

Oz, shaking his head again - "No, I'm saying it because Buffy's got this crazy look in her eyes and it's pointed towards Willow."

Buffy, mumbling - "So much red."

Willow looked down at her clothes and realized that she was wearing a pair of red tracksuit pants and matching jacket.

Willow - "Red is a bad thing?"

Angel - "I wasn't going to say anything but since the topic came up, Willow, you look like a T-bone steak on legs. How you dress like that and live on the hellmouth is beyond me."

Cordelia, to Willow - "How about we take you out into the corridor? And I'll cheer you up by telling you how to color coordinate properly."

Buffy watched as Willow was led out of the room, whimpering slightly from her hunger pains. Giles picked Angel off the floor and went through his pockets. Eventually he took out of pair of keys, which he gave to Oz.

Giles, to Oz - "Go to Angel's. Take Willow. Angel should have kept some blood packs there. We could use them to feed Buffy."

Oz – "That's a plan."

And then Oz left quickly. After that, Cordelia came back, followed by Jenny Calendar.

Once inside Jenny squinted at Angel. When she saw Buffy in full vampire mode, she yelped and backed up against the wall.

Xander - "Yeah. That was my reaction too."

Cordelia, shaking her head - "Actually yours was to kick Angel when he's down."

Jenny, sadly - "He turned her?"

Giles, in business mode - "She's under control for now but I would like to find some more permanent solution. Not only for Buffy but for Angel too. He somehow lost his soul. That's why he turned Buffy. I'm hoping I could get in contact with the original gypsies who cursed him and perhaps have the curse reinstated. From what I understand they're unrelenting with their curses so I think we could get their help for Angel. For Buffy, perhaps we could .. I don't know. To be perfectly honest, I don't want to curse her."

Xander - "Why not? It sounds like a good idea to me."

Angel, laughing out loud - "If it was a good thing then they wouldn't call it a curse, would they?"

Xander, smirking - "Of course it's not a good thing, for YOU!"

Angel shook his head - "It's a curse for my other self too. Hey, do you want to know how we broke the curse?"

Xander, nodding - "Actually, yeah."

Buffy - "Someone put a sock in his mouth! Borrow mine! I'm got two of them."

Angel, ignoring Buffy - "Now I'm just guessing here but I think the curse can be broken by one moment of being really really happy. Guess who made me happy?"

Xander followed Angel's line of sight to Buffy.

Buffy, groaning - "Thanks a lot, Angel. Why don't you just pay for a fricken billboard?"

Angel, grinning - "That's a good idea. A big billboard, smack in the middle of LA that reads the Scourge of Europe knocked boots with Buffy Anne Summers. Or I could just post it on the internet. You know I took photos of you when you were dead."

Xander clenched his fists a few times.

Xander, to Giles – "Are you sure I can't hit him? Just a little bit more?"

Giles - "No. But we should be able to find something to gag him with."

Cordelia -"Has anyone thought about staking both of them?"

Xander – "Cordy. Don't say that."

Cordelia – "Why not? No one else is. Let's face it. Angel's gone evil and the way Buffy is looking at me… that's not right."

Xander, shaking his head - "We need to fix Buffy so she can fight the Judge. Remember him? Big arms, strong hands, kinda blue."

Cordelia, shook her head - "Buffy's not in any condition to fight anyone. Look at her. She looks like Roberto strung out of peyote."

Xander, confused - "Uh, who's Roberto."

Cordelia – "I didn't tell you about him? He was just some house hold help. Daddy had him deported after he drove the sit-on-mower off a cliff."

O-O-O-O

Warehouse.

Drusilla, moaning in pain - "Spike."

Spike – "What is it pet? What do you see?"

Drusilla – "It's Angel. He needs us. He's calling out to me."

Spike, frowning - "Now that you mention it, he really should have been back by now. I suppose he's just torturing some poor soul. He used to do that a lot."

Drusilla shook her head.

Drusilla – "No. He would take them back here where it's safe. Where I can watch."

Spike, smirking - "No. You know Angel. He likes to torture them in their homes, where he can get off on the chance that he'll be caught in the act."

Drusilla, pouting - "But he's in trouble, I can feel it."

Spike, sighing - "Bloody brilliant. First night back and he's already in trouble. I can't believe I'm saying it but I guess we have to save his sodden ass."

Drusilla slapped Spike on the shoulder.

Drusilla – "Bad Spoike. Angel's very sad and you're jesting."

Spike raised an eyebrow then smiled.

Spike - "He's sad? Why? What happened?"

Drusilla, pouting - "I can't see."

Spike, taking her hands in his - "Well, don't you worry. We'll find him and kill whoever is making him sad. How does that sound?"

Drusilla, now smiling - "You always know how to make it better."

Spike - "Only for you, luv."

Spike, to judge - "Hey, smurf! You ready for some action? It seems we've got a spot of trouble."

The judge - "I am not completely invincible yet."

This made Spike sigh.

Spike - "Right, so we'll do it the old fashioned way. Dru, take some boys out and bring him back. And remember, be back before dawn. I worry."

O-O-O-O

The Scoobies at the library were now in research mode, trying to ignore the glares from the gagged Angelus and the growls from the increasing feral Buffy.

Cordelia tried to rub the tiredness out of her eyes.

Cordelia, complaining - "This really couldn't have happened at a worse time."

Xander – "That's not true. It could have come during exams."

Cordelia – "No stupid! I mean with Buffy and Angel joining the other team. Now what are we going to do? In case you hadn't noticed they're the only fighters we have."

Xander, insulted - "Hey. I'm a fighter. I've fought before."

Cordelia, laughing at him - "And you're going to fight the judge? You and what army?"

Xander was about to retort but instead he just looked back at her as a silly smile crept onto his face.

Xander - "I think I just figured out how to deal with this Judge guy."

There were some muffled laughs coming from Angelus but Xander ignored him.

Cordelia, seriously - "Seriously?"

Xander, nodding emphatically - "I'll need some help though. Cordy, you want to be an actor, don't you?"

Cordelia nodded slightly while Giles and Jenny looked at Xander with interest.

Xander - "Then this is great for you. It'll be your first bit part. But we'll need a vehicle."

Cordelia, with a grin - "I've got a car."

Xander, shaking his head – "No. We'll need something bigger."

Giles – "This plan doesn't involve driving over the judge, does it?"

Xander, smirking – "No but that's a good back up plan. Good thinking, Giles. We could use a man like you in the corps."

Jenny – "So what exactly is this plan of yours?"

Before Xander could explain, the twin doors to the library swung upon and a small mob of vampires came in led by Drusilla. The four Scoobies stood up and armed themselves with stakes and crosses. Jenny's cross was a little bigger than the others for some unknown reason. They all clumped together for safety in numbers.

Drusilla, commanding one of her lackeys - "Free Angel."

Xander intercepted the vampire who moved to free Angel with his cross outstretched and stake readied. All it gave back was its harshest scowl.

Xander - "Hey! Back off!"

Buffy, as if in pain - "Let me out."

When Xander was distracted by Buffy, he was hit by a thrown chair which knocked him to the ground. Cordelia squealed and the group moved over to Xander to protect him while he was down.

Angelus frantically tried to say something but it was muffled by the gag.

The vampire now freeing Angelus - "Relax. We'll get you out of that."

Angel's eyes shot wide as one of the other vampires found the key chain to Buffy's cage and was trying to figure out which one fit.

The instant Angel had one of his hands free he ripped off the gag and shouted out

Angel - "DON'T!"

But it was too late as the vampire had already unlocked the cage.

Buffy kicked the cage door open with all her might and it hit the vampire with the keys, knocking him back over the counter.

Then Buffy came out swinging a machete at the unsuspecting vampires. With the first swing, she cut one vampire's head off clean off and cut another's neck in a not so clean fashion.

Angel – "STOP HER!"

Finally most of the vampires realized that Buffy was trying to kill them.

Drusilla didn't notice for some reason and Buffy took this as a chance to get rid of the psychotic psychic, throwing the machete.

A split second later and Drusilla found herself with a machete through her right lung and imbedded in the wall behind her. She started screaming but stopped with a strangled sound when it caused even more damage and intense pain.

Two of the unwounded vampires charged Buffy and she kicked away one then lashed out at the other, clawing its throat out.

Angel and his liberator attacked her from behind but Buffy was seemingly ready. She round housed the fledgling across the face then got slammed to the ground when Angel whacked her with the sturdy chair he was originally bound in. The impact was so brutal that it broke the back off the chair.

Angel, looking down on a stunned Buffy - "I don't think this is going to work out. So let's just end it here before it turns ugly."

He drove the sharp piece of chair down but Buffy caught it in mid-thrust before it pierced her heart. She was still weakened though and couldn't push Angelus away or deflect the path of the attack.

Angel, seeing this, decided that all Buffy needed was a little push.

Angel – "Before you die for the second time, tell me, did you enjoy your first time? Was it everything you dreamt it would be?"

Buffy whimpered and the sharp piece of wood came down excruciatingly slow, piercing into her chest almost gently.

Before Angel could push it in any further, Giles tackled Angel off Buffy. The two men rolled and somehow Angel ended on top of Giles, smiling down at him with a toothy grin.

That was ended quickly as Jenny followed Giles up by throwing a bottle of holy water which broke against the side of Angel's face.

Angel quickly rolled off Giles and across the floor, trying to stop the scalding with little success by patting at it with his hands.

By now, Drusilla had pulled the machete out of the wall and out of herself. With Angel now free and being outnumbered by vampire hunters, she decided that now was a good time to leave.

She limped over to Angel and hauled him up. Then the two master vampires left while the Scoobies were still contending with the fledglings.

Cordelia was busy stabbing her stake at a dazed vampire on the ground while another vampire charged Jenny, the only person still standing upright.

As it ran past, Buffy tripped it up with a foot and Jenny stabbed down with her stake, stabbing it in the back while it was down, dusting it.

By now Cordelia finally got a heart shot and dusted the poor pin cushion of a vampire she had been repeatedly stabbing, which left one vampire left who had a vicious neck wound.

Seeing that it was outmatched and out-skilled, it picked up the bloodied machete for more protection.

Right then, Oz and Willow had come back, both carrying some plastic bags.

The last vampire charged them, machete ready to strike.

Buffy picked up Giles' stake which he had dropped in the scuffle with Angelus and threw it. Instead of hitting true in the back of the chest and into the heart, the stake took a slightly lower trajectory and hit the vampire in the back of one knee. Before it even realized it had been hit, it spun on one leg and fell down with the machete cutting the rest of its neck off as it lost control and hit the ground. It dusted, leaving the machete sticking up out of the floorboards.

Buffy, trying to be upbeat as it turned to dust - "Shouldn't run with knives."

Willow and Oz spent some time to look over the room which looked like a small bomb hit it.

Oz, calmly – "What did we miss?"

Buffy, not bothering to get off the floor – "Did you bring the blood?"

Oz quickly dipped into a bag and pulled out a see through plastic bladder full of blood which he threw to Buffy.

Buffy caught it then bit down on blood pack and squeezed it, emptying it in seconds.

After realizing it was empty, she pouted and threw it aside.

Buffy – "That was good. Got any more?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	2. 1b New chain of command

Scene – The vampire's warehouse.

Angelus threw a vase against the wall and roared in anger.

Angelus – "What is wrong with that girl! I turned her! I made her mine! I even fed her! Then she hit me with a baseball bat and handed me to the enemy on a silver platter."

Spike, conversationally - "Maybe this is why vampires don't turn Slayers. I always knew there was a good reason."

Angelus, still angry but a little quieter - "But it's not supposed to work like this. I turned her and that should make her mine! Why didn't it!"

O-O-O-O

Scene – The school library.

Xander, holding an icepack to his head - "I keep going back to the Slayer thing. Could it be that somehow being a Slayer means she kept her soul?"

They looked over to where Buffy was draining another blood pack and humming a little tune. By the pile of empties on the table next to her, she had gone through quite a few already.

Cordelia, skeptically - "I don't know. She isn't acting very Buffy-ish."

Willow – "Or maybe she's a vampire now but she's still a vampire slayer. That would explain why she helped slay those vampires."

O-O-O-O

Angel growled and shook his head.

Angel – "That makes no sense whatsoever."

Spike – "Then let me ask you this. What is a Slayer?"

Angel, rolling his eyes - "In every generation, there's a chosen girl. She alone can fight the demons and vampires and neat stuff like that. What about it?"

Spike – "Think about it. What if Buffy was never chosen? What would she be doing now? I'll tell you what she wouldn't be doing. She wouldn't be haunting the cemeteries and hunting vampires, that's what."

Angel - "That's a given. What are you getting at?"

Spike – "Imagine if you would, being the Slayer not only gives a bird strength and all that flexibility but it gives them the instinct to slay vampires. It's what brings them off. They'll complain about it and say they don't want to do it but deep down, they need to get that kill. They're really just like us."

O-O-O-O

Cordelia, to Giles – "So you're saying she's a vampire but she's not?"

Giles shook his head – "I'm saying that she may have the instincts of both a vampire and the Slayer. Vampires are predatory demons while from what I know about the Slayer's spirit, it takes more of a guardian role. It's quite possible that she's even less human than the average vampire. It's just the forces within her may be canceling each other out."

Xander – "So what do we do with her?"

O-O-O-O

Spike – "How about sticking some wood where the sun doesn't shine? That's what I would do."

Angel - "I tried! And I got tackled by a librarian for my efforts. That's what I can't stand. I turned her and yet, they're still on her side. She's supposed to killing them into little itty bitty pieces and they're supposed to kill her back."

Spike, chuckling - "They're helping her? That's just bonkers."

O-O-O-O

Xander, nodding in agreement - "Yup. We're nuts."

Buffy had finally finished drinking and was licking blood off her fingers. After she had cleaned her fingers, her game face disappeared and it was replaced by a satisfied look of someone comfortably full.

Buffy - "Mmmmm. That really hit the spot."

Giles - "You certainty drank enough."

Buffy - "I was really hungry. I mean REALLY hungry. I couldn't even think straight. My head was all oxygen deprived. Thanks Will, Oz, I really needed that."

Willow, uncomfortably - "That's okay."

Buffy - "Oh!"

Cordelia - "What?"

Buffy - "The judge! He's complete! We never told you."

Giles – "We guessed as much. But we still haven't found anything that would help us defeat him."

Xander, standing up with excitement - "Oh!"

Xander, now wincing from his head wound - "Ow!"

Jenny - "Before, you said you had a plan?"

Xander, now smiling - "Yeah. But we'll need a van or something. Oz, could we use yours? And Cordy, we need you to dress like you're going to star in a porno."

Cordelia blinked at him.

Cordelia, now glaring at him - "Why?"

Xander - "If I tell you, you won't do it. Besides, it will be good practice for later on in life, won't it?"

Cordelia - "This isn't some twisted end of the world celebration party you're planning, is it? Because I wouldn't put it past you."

Xander - "No. It's not. Tomorrow, we save the world."

Buffy - "And get to see Cordelia in something trashy."

Xander, nodding - "That's right. Willow, Oz, Cordelia, meet here at eight tomorrow. Oz, can you bring your van?"

Buffy - "Can I help?"

Xander hesitated.

Xander - "We don't really need you for this. Using a .. Slayer, yeah, using a slayer for this would be overkill."

Buffy dipped her head down but didn't say anything.

While the children talked, Jenny and Giles had moved to the other side of the room and talked amongst themselves.

Giles – "I'm not sure what we should do about Buffy."

Jenny – "Assuming they don't attack again, I say we let her be for now. She doesn't seem too dangerous. Or at least she doesn't want to hurt us."

Giles – "I agree. She might not quite be our Buffy but she could be useful."

Buffy, yelling from across the room - "I can hear you!"

Everyone looked at her and she pointed at her ears.

Buffy, sullen - "Vampire ears. Not as pleasant as the brochure says they are."

Willow - "Are you going to be okay?"

Buffy - "What do you think? My boyfriend just turned evil and killed me. You don't just kill people and.. oh."

Xander - "And oh? What and oh?"

Buffy, with dread - "I just killed people."

Willow, scooting along the table away from Buffy - "You killed people?"

Buffy, frantically - "It's not what you think. I was just risen and I didn't know what I was doing. I was so confused and they were so warm and, oh, they were so tasty… mmm."

Buffy started to daydream about exactly how nice they tasted when she spotted the other's look of shock.

Buffy - "But no more! I won't do it anymore. I promise."

Willow, gulping - "Okay."

Buffy – "No. I'm serious. I don't-I don't want to walk down that path and oh my god! How am I going to explain this to Mom? I can't just tell her that I'm a vampire. She'll think I'm crazy. And what about school? It's on during the day."

Giles, calming - "Buffy, don't worry. We will figure something out."

Buffy - "You'll figure something out! Like what? Because I doubt sunscreen will fix this… uh, will it?"

Giles shook his head.

Giles - "No but it's important that you keep your head."

Buffy, nodding dutifully - "You're right. Decapitation would be very bad. It would dust me. Ugh. There won't even be anything to bury if I die. This just keeps getting worse."

Giles – "This is obviously a very trying transition for you-"

Buffy, angry - "A transition? That's what we're calling it now? I don't think you get it, Giles. I'm dead. I don't have a pulse. I'm not even human anymore. As far as all of you're all concerned, I'm not even Buffy anymore."

Cordelia – "That's not true. You're sort of, uh, like her."

Buffy blubbered a little and she broke out into tears. With a wail she ran out of the room.

Giles moved to walk after her but Willow stopped him.

Willow – "You've said enough."

Outside of the library, Willow found Buffy crying against a line of lockers.

Willow, softly - "Buffy."

Buffy - "What?"

Willow placed her hand on the back of Buffy's shoulders then pulled Buffy into a hug.

Buffy kept crying for a while then suddenly stopped and started hugging Willow back, purring as she did.

Willow pulled away in shock.

Willow - "Buffy!"

Buffy, blinking in surprise - "I'm sorry. You were just so warm and comfortable. Can we do that again? It was really nice."

Willow – "Y-You touched me. D-Down there."

Buffy – "No, I didn't. Did I?"

Willow nodded emphatically.

Buffy – "I don't remember doing that."

Willow – "But you did. You touched my behind."

Buffy – "Oh. Because when you said down there I thought you meant… I touched your ass? Okay, that's just weird. I'm pretty sure I didn't even do that."

Willow – "Yeah, you did."

Buffy rolled her eyes and moved in and hugged Willow again.

Buffy – "See. No hands."

Willow gasped - "Hands!"

The two broke away instantly and Buffy stared at her hands.

Buffy – "Oh my god. That.. I can't even hug people now?"

Willow – "I'm sure boys wouldn't mind you hugging them."

Buffy – "Willow. You're not helping. What if I did that to Giles? Or Xander or my MOM?"

Willow – "I still don't see why you did it to me."

Buffy – "I don't know either. I just couldn't help myself. You, you're so .."

Buffy turned away in shame.

Willow, frowning, – "I'm so what?"

Buffy - "You're so full of blood, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Willow – "No."

Buffy – "Then we have something in common."

Willow – "I won't lie. I'm not even sure you're Buffy anymore. But I knew Buffy and if you're anything like her then you can beat this. It will just take some adaptation."

Buffy – "I don't think I can. You don't know what it's like."

Willow – "Then tell me."

Buffy – "I know how to explain it. You know what it's like to feel connected to a higher power?"

Willow shook her head.

Buffy – "That's because you've always been connected to it, you don't know any different. I don't know what it is. I guess you could call it life or God or the jedi force or something. But you never realize you had this connection until you lose it. That's how I feel. Will, I'm feel empty. I feel like I've lost my batteries."

Buffy started crying again and Willow hugged her.

Willow – "Uh, Buffy, could you keep your hands a little higher this time?"

Buffy, moving her hands back up – "Okay. Sorry."

Willow – "Don't worry about it."

Buffy started purring again and nuzzled into Willows neck.

Suddenly Buffy broke free when her game face turned on.

Buffy – "Okay. No more hugs for now."

Willow blinked - "You're still hungry?"

Buffy, hesitating before answering - "Uh, yeah. That's it. I'm still hungry."

Willow - "Then we should, uh, you should drink some more blood packs."

Buffy – "I should save some for later. I don't know where Angel got them from."

Willow, nodding - "You're right. We'll check it out during the day. Maybe he gets them from Willy's bar. So are you okay to come back into the meeting?"

Buffy, touching her forehead - "Um. I guess. It's not like everyone hasn't seen this already. Umm, how ugly is it?"

Willow studied Buffy's game face. It looked a little more gnarled than the usual vampire's.

Willow, diplomatically - "It's not that bad."

Buffy - "Really?"

Willow, nodding - "Yeah. It looks just like that time we were in nightmare land. I never told you this but Xander said it was hot."

Buffy, with a silly smile - "Really?"

Willow - "Yeah. So it can't be that bad, can it?"

Buffy, following Willow back to the library - "I guess not."

Giles, addressing the others inside the library - "Her vampire side and her slayer side are at war with her personality so I believe it would best that we keep her grounded in her human life as much as possible."

Buffy, with her face back to normal - "I'd like that."

Giles jerked in shock, not expecting Buffy to hear that.

Giles - "Uh, Buffy. I was just, uh, even as the Slayer, you refused to lose your social life. I thought it would be important for you to keep it even now. Especially now."

Buffy - "I realize what you're trying to do. Don't worry. I understand. In fact, I even agree. I .. I need my friends. Still, what am I going to do with my Mom?"

Giles - "For tonight, you won't have to worry. As far as she knows, you're staying over at Willow's. You could even use the same excuse tomorrow. Tell her that you're working on a school project together."

Buffy – "That's great but it's not like I could move into Willow's forever. It might look a little strange."

Xander – "You could say you're, uh, experimenting with lesbianism."

Willow gasped.

Willow – "Xander! You realize that we're trying to keep her OUT of trouble, don't you? Besides, Buffy would never, umm.."

Buffy, uncomfortably, – "Yeah. I wouldn't. That wouldn't be very me."

Giles – "I'm sure we will all think a lot clearer in the morning. Willow, you take Buffy home and have her stay there tomorrow, during school."

Willow – "You want her to stay in my .. Uh, okay."

Buffy – "Relax. I'll behave. I'm not totally ravenous."

Cordelia, under her breath - "Not yet anyway."

Buffy, growled - "You know I can hear that."

Cordelia, smiling openly - "I know."

Jenny, eager to leave - "I guess that's it then. See you all tomorrow."

Xander, now leaving too - "Yeah. Bye guys. And Buffy, try not to bite anyone else."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Enyo's hotel room.

Jenny - "Uncle. Something terrible has happened. Angelus has broken the curse and he turned the Slayer. You told me to keep them separated but you never told me this would happen if I didn't."

Enyo – "And you failed."

Jenny – "Damnit. Don't you get it? Angelus is back and he turned the Slayer. Her friends still believe she's on their side and not even I can tell if she isn't. She even wants Angelus back to normal."

Enyo – "She's a vampire. They are fickle creatures. She will have to be disposed of before her affections change."

Jenny – "And how would I do that? I'm not a vampire hunter and she-she's amazing. We've got to do something about her and we definitely have to do something about Angelus. He almost killed Giles today."

Enyo, disappointed - "The librarian? You have grown attached to him?"

Jenny, a little shaken - "No. Of course not. But Uncle, people are going to die because of this. People already have died."

Enyo – "Angelus was not cursed for no good reason, Janna."

Jenny - "And what about the soul Angelus was cursed with? What did he do to deserve this?"

Enyo – "It is not justice we serve but vengeance."

Jenny – "No. It's insanity you serve. You're a fool. We're all fools."

With that outburst, Jenny took her coat and left.

O-O-O-O

Scene – bathroom in Willow's house.

Buffy and Willow were laying down cushions on the floor. The small window had two thick towels hanging over it to stop any sunlight creeping in during the day.

Buffy - "How could he say that? I mean, say it like that? Like it was a joke?"

Willow frowned - "Uh, who are we talking about?"

Buffy - "Xander! He said try not to bite anyone else. Like it was a joke or a threat or I wanted to or something."

Willow - "But I thought you did want to. I mean, I thought you kind of, you know, liked that now."

Buffy – "I do but I don't want to. You understand, don't you?"

Willow, nodded - "I think I do. Buffy, just.. just try to get some sleep. Um, are you sure you want to sleep in the bathroom? The floor will be kinda cold."

Buffy, sadly - "I chose this room because it only has one small window for sunlight to get in. It doesn't really matter where I sleep. I don't have body heat remember? Doesn't matter if I'm in a bed or sleeping on a slab of rock. It's just as warm."

Willow – "But the slab of rock would be uncomfortable."

Buffy, grinning - "And that's why I have pillows. Plus, I can hog the bath in the morning."

Willow – "It's good that you're joking."

Buffy, deadpanned - "Who's joking?"

Willow, closing the door behind her - "Um, well, um, sleep well."

Buffy frowned as Willow leaned a chair against the other side of the door and placed a few items on it so that if Buffy opened the door, the items would fall off and make some noise and hopefully wake Willow up.

It seemed Willow wasn't as trusting as Buffy believed.

With a sigh, Buffy turned on the hot tap to the bath.

As the bath filled up, Buffy looked gloomily at the claddagh ring which she still wore on her finger for a few moments. Then she stepped fully clothed in the bath, ignoring the scalding hot water.

Gently, she laid herself down and the water turned red with the blood stains from her clothes. Almost looking dead, she laid in the bath as the water level rose, submerging her.

And she dreamt.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Willow's bedroom, hours later.

The sun had risen and Willow's electronic alarm clock went off.

Willow groaned and fumbled with it, finally finding the kill switch and silencing it.

She got out of bed in her pajamas and removed the chair that was braced against the door handle. Then she walked out into the hall and found that the chair she had leant against the bathroom door was still there. It still had the bag of marbles which Willow had placed on it, which meant that Buffy probably hadn't tried to open the door. Willow removed the chair from the door and placed the bag of marbles on a nearby hallway cabinet. Then she knocked on the bathroom door.

Willow - "Buffy? Uh, do you want some coffee?"

Willow waited for a response but didn't get any.

Willow - "Buffy? Are you okay?"

Willow waited some more but got nothing.

Pulling a small wooden cross from a pajama pocket, she carefully opened the door.

Nothing jumped out at her. In fact, Buffy wasn't even in the room.

Willow gasped and realized that the towels had been taken down from the window and it was wide open. She looked around the room and didn't notice any piles of ash.

O-O-O-O

Scene – School Library.

Giles was alone in the library, drinking some coffee and frowning at a page in a book.

Jenny came in and he offered her a tired smile. She offered one back.

Jenny – "Anything new?"

Giles, closing the book - "No. Everything I read about the Judge tells me to run for the hills and everything I read about vampires tells me to stake Buffy where she stands. Not the most constructive advice."

The phone rang and Giles turned to pick it up.

Giles, into the phone – "Oh, hello Willow – Uh, what? – Buffy escaped? Yes, I concur. That's doesn't sound good at all. I'll, uh, hold on please."

Giles, calling out with his hand over the receiver -"Jenny?"

Giles frowned and looked around with a little worry, finding Jenny missing.

Giles, back into the receiver – "This is what you should do. Come to school. Your parents are away for the week, aren't they? Then that gives us a week to handle Buffy or at least find some way of barring her entrance to your home. Uh, if you would excuse me, there's something that needs my attention here. – Yes, see you soon."

Giles put down the phone and looked around the room. Jenny was there just a few seconds ago and then she vanished.

Giles – "How curious."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Janitors closet, down the hall and around the corner.

Buffy dragged the overpowered Jenny into the small room and pinned her against the wall by her throat.

When Buffy turned to close the door behind her, Jenny pulled out a cross and shoved it in Buffy's face.

Buffy let out a yelp, grabbed Jenny's wrist and twisted. The cross fell from her limp hand and Buffy kicked it aside.

With her game face now on, Buffy growled.

Buffy – "Now you're going to tell me everything. Who are you? Who are you really?"

Jenny took in some needed air when Buffy released her throat.

Jenny looked at the door and Buffy shook her head.

Buffy – "I'll break your neck before you even get to scream. Tell me who you are. What did you do to Angel?"

Jenny, shaking her head - "It wasn't me. You've got to believe me."

Buffy – "How am I supposed to trust you? You're hiding something from me."

Jenny sighed - "I didn't do anything to Angel. I was sent her to stop Angelus resurfacing. My real name is Janna Kalderash."

Buffy – "You're a gypsy. From the same family who cursed him to begin with?"

Jenny nodded - "That's right."

Buffy - "So what happened?"

Jenny – "You happened. The curse was put in place to make Angelus suffer. The funny thing about vampires is that they can learn to enjoy almost anything, especially pain. To counter this, my clan brought back part of Angel's human life, the part that can suffer eternally. Simply put his soul. But, as I just found out yesterday, if Angel's soul finds true happiness, if even for a moment then it's freed and the curse dissolves."

Buffy let go of Jenny and slumped against the wall.

Buffy - "And what about me? What am I paying for?"

Jenny – "I am sorry. You believe me, don't you?"

Buffy, glaring at the gypsy - "Curse him again."

Jenny – "I can't do that. I couldn't. Those magics were lost long ago, even to my people."

Buffy – "Your people did it once. It's time to do it again."

Jenny – "I'd like to but I can't help you."

Buffy – "Then take me to someone who can."

Suddenly, the door opened and Giles was on the other side, holding a crossbow and bearing a cross.

Jenny and Buffy both froze.

Jenny – "Giles, you can put that down."

Buffy – "Both of them please. Crosses are.. aggravating."

Giles put both weapons down and frowned.

Giles – "Is there any particular reason why you two are conspiring in the janitor's closet?"

Buffy, to Jenny - "You should tell him. If you don't, I will."

Jenny groaned - "Fine. I will. Later. There's someone you'll want to talk to first. Someone about the curse."

Giles frowned deeper.

Giles – "I say, what is going on here?"

Jenny, to Giles – "It's a little complicated. Um, would you be a dear and cover my computer class in second period?"

Giles blinked.

Giles – "But I don't know anything about computer studies."

Jenny – "That's okay. Willow's in that class. She can handle the actual teaching side."

Buffy – "So, this person, I take it I'll have to go through more sunlight to get to him?"

Jenny, frowning - "Um, I guess so. Talking of which, how did you get here? Through the sewers?"

Buffy, shaking her head in the negative - "I wrapped myself in wet towels and kept to the shadows."

Jenny – "Smart."

Buffy, smiling - "That's what I thought until the towels burst into flames. Oh and sorry about the wrist. It's not broken, is it?"

Jenny gingerly rubbed her wrist as the two girls left the small enclosed space and wandered off down the hall, leaving Giles very confused in their wake.

Jenny – "No. It's not broken, just sore. Let's use my car. You should be safe in the boot."

Buffy sighed - "Ah, the boot. It was only a matter of time."

O-O-O-O

Angel had his hands steepled together as he sat, deep in thought.

Spike was reading the newspaper, not as troubled as his sire.

Angel – "But how would Xander formulate a plan to kill the judge?"

Spike, sighing and putting the paper down – "You're not still on that, are you?"

Angel – "You should be worried about this too. He seemed very confident about it which is out of character."

Spike – "You'd know."

Angel – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Spike – "Nothing. I just said that you would know. Because you would know, wouldn't you? They weren't exactly my friends, were they?"

Angel – "Hey, Xander was never my friend."

Spike – "If you say so."

Angel – "But it's true. I hate the prick. Both versions of me do."

Spike – "Alright then."

Angel – "And what is THAT supposed to mean?"

Spike, sighed again - "Geez, I've forgotten how bloody touchy you are. I wasn't implying anything."

Angel – "… Good."

With that, Spike ruffled his papers back up and kept reading.

Angel – "But what could it be?"

Spike – "How the bloody hell should I know? Hey! Big and blue! What took you out last time?"

Judge, sullenly - "An army."

Spike – "See. And I doubt there's still a bunch of sword swinging boy scouts around to cut up the judge this time."

O-O-O-O

Scene – library.

Giles and Willow got to the library first after the bell. They found Jenny and Buffy there, both of them looking the worse for wear. They both had their reasons.

Jenny's make up was running while Buffy wore a blank, empty expression.

Willow put her hands on her hips, trying to sound angry at Buffy.

Willow – "You just left during the night. I was worried sick."

Buffy, dull - "Yeah, worried sick that I had gone out and killed someone."

Willow tried to look shocked but Buffy was too accurate.

Buffy - "Don't worry. I didn't kill anyone. Angelus did though. We're going to have to kill him."

Giles - "Don't give up hope, Buffy. If we can find the remnants of the gypsy tribe who cursed him originally, we could recover the original curse."

Jenny, sighed - "You're looking at them. A few hours ago, you could have included my uncle but Angelus just killed him."

Giles and Willow were both a little shocked.

Giles – "Excuse me. You're from the Kalderash clan? Isn't that a little coincidental?"

Jenny – "I was sent to Sunnydale to keep track of Angel for my clan. To keep him suffering. You see, if his soul ever stops suffering, if he ever knows true happiness, then he loses his soul."

Buffy, angrily - "And I still think someone should have told me this."

Jenny – "Don't look at me like that. I wasn't even told!"

Giles – "But but.. how would Buffy give that to Angel?"

Giles caught an ashamed look from Buffy. Then he took his glasses off and rubbed them furiously.

Giles – "Oh."

Buffy - "That's right. My first time just happened to be my last time too."

Giles, upset – "Don't talk like that."

Buffy – "Sorry. I'm just angry."

Giles – "I .. I can understand. I'm angry too."

Willow – "So what do we do about Angel now?"

Buffy – "I thought it would obvious. We have to kill him. It's what.. It's what Angel would have wanted. He wouldn't want to have that.. that monster parading around in his body."

O-O-O-O

Scene – hours later, after sunset.

Cordelia looked up at a bold sign which read "Sunnydale Army base."

Xander looked over at Cordelia with a smile. She actually was dressed reasonably trashy. He thought she could do better but was surprised that she took the effort at all.

Xander, wearing an army camo uniform – "I guess its fashion that's always the first casualty in war."

Cordelia nodded - "That's so true. Are you sure this is the place?"

Xander – "Yup. I think this is the place."

Cordelia - "So what's my motivation again?"

Xander – "You're a whore. And I mean that in the nicest possible way."

Xander cut a few links on the fence with some wire cutters and squeezed through with Cordelia in tow.

Cordelia - "So are we talking Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite or Elizabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas."

Xander paused and thought about that for a beat.

Xander - "Elizabeth Shue."

Cordelia – "Yeah. I liked Leaving Las Vegas more."

Xander – "Oh, I didn't. I just liked the characters more."

Cordelia - "That's the same thing."

Xander, while creeping – "No, it's not. Leaving Las Vegas was mind numblingly dull, a completely boring movie. But I felt that the characters in it were more believable and easier to sympathize with. Also, the acting was better."

Cordelia, frowning - "So you think it's better to be a good actor in a poor movie than a not so good actor in a better movie?"

Xander – "You.. You've lost me. Forget it. Here's it is. Now ssh."

Xander looked out from the parked truck they were hiding behind and found the coast to be clear. Then they both snuck out from their hiding place and into the armory.

Cordelia – "But you've got to admit in mighty Aphrodite that Mira Sorvino was the only reason the movie worked at all."

Xander shrugged as he looked through the crates.

Xander - "To be honest, I haven't actually seen it. Isn't it a Woody Allen? Oh wait. Here it is."

Cordelia glared at Xander.

Cordelia – "You haven't even seen it but we're having a conversation about it!"

Xander – "What can I say? It's not really that important. Is it?"

Cordelia – "It's important to me. Mira Sorvino won eight different awards as a supporting character in that movie."

Xander, not interested - "Really? Okay then be more Sorvino. And help me lift this, it's heavy."

Cordelia - "What is it?"

Xander, smiling evilly - "It's large and very explosive. Don't drop it."

O-O-O-O

Scene – library.

Back at the library Giles, Jenny and Buffy were still trying to find some way to handle the judge. Buffy kept getting sidetracked by snipping at Jenny.

Buffy – "Giles, aren't you even sore that Jenny's been lying to us all this time?"

Giles, sighing - "Buffy, we should focus on the task at hand. The Judge."

Buffy - "Yeah. He's a tough one alright. It's funny though. He keeps reminding me of the smurfs. Why is that?"

As if on cue, Xander and Oz came in, carrying a long crate. Cordelia and Willow followed them in.

Xander – "I wouldn't worry about the judge anymore. Not with this little puppy."

Buffy, blinking – "It's a puppy?"

Xander, directing Oz - "Let's put it down up there."

Giles – "What is that? It looks military."

Xander, grinning widely - "That's because it is! We're now the proud owner of our own anti-tank rocket launcher system. It could also be anti-judge in a pinch."

Buffy, gasped - "You stole a rocket?"

Xander - "I like to use the word appropriated."

Oz - "Sounds more military."

Xander - "Precisely. And we actually stole two, just in case we need another. I've still got the other one back in my basement. I guess I'll have to hide it from my parents before they find it. I should disguise it as a bong or something."

Jenny - "But you can't just blow him up with a rocket."

Xander, frowning - "Why not? It's what they're made for."

Buffy - "He's got a point."

Xander - "The only problem is, how do we keep the vampires off us long enough to set this thing up."

Buffy, holding her hand up - "Ooh! I can help there. I can slay them. I haven't forgotten how."

Xander frowned.

Xander - "But we will be dealing with more than just a few vampires. We'll be dealing with Spike and Drusilla AND Angel. Do you think you could fight them all at once?"

Buffy - "Sure. Spike's in a wheel chair, paralyzed from the knees down and Drusilla will still be nursing the gaping chest wound I gave her last night so she won't be so nimble. The only problem will be Angelus. Don't worry though. I'll handle him."

Xander – "You better. If he isn't, uh, handled then he'll make our lives a living hell. We should check the factory first. I think it's a long shot they're still there but hey, we could be lucky. Hell, there might even be some underlings there we could interrogate."

Giles - "That sounds like a sound plan."

Cordelia looked at Xander oddly.

Cordelia – "Okay. Who are you and what have you done with Xander?"

Xander, chuckling - "Sorry. It's just wearing this uniform has brought back a few old memories from that Halloween. There's just something about a chain of command that brings out my pushy side."

Buffy – "So who's going to use the rocket?"

Xander – "I will. Is anyone else here trained?"

Buffy, arguing – "You're not exactly trained."

Xander – "True but it's the closet thing we have. Besides, you can't use it. We need you to protect us against the vampires, remember?"

Buffy, pouting - "Alright. I .. I just thought it would be fun."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	3. 1c Yes sire, no sire

Scene - the vampire's warehouse.

Xander, deflated - "It's a bust."

The Scoobies looked around the deserted factory with disappointment. Buffy walked out into the middle of the room, to a large table and found a newspaper on it. Then she tilted her head curiously and sniffed, smelling the air.

Giles – "If they're not here then they must be on the offensive."

Xander – "They'd go somewhere with lots of bodies, wouldn't they? Since that's what the judge feeds on."

Buffy crept further into the factory, leaving the others behind.

Willow – "What about the bronze?"

Xander, shaking his head - "It's closed tonight."

Buffy kept walking until she found a terrified Spike hiding in the shadows, still trapped in his wheelchair.

Cordelia – "It's not like there's a lot of choices in Sunnydale. It's not like people are just going to line up to be massacred."

Oz – "Uh, guys. If I were gonna line up, I know where I would go. The mall."

Xander, nodding - "That makes sense. Let's go check there."

Xander spotted Buffy on the other side of the factory, not following them.

Xander, calling out to Buffy – "Buffy, did you find something?"

At first, Buffy didn't answer. After some time, she turned around and smiled his way.

Buffy - "Nah. I just thought I heard something. Let's go."

Xander, tapping his watch - "Well, hurry up. It's a race against the clock."

O-O-O-O

Scene – outside the mall.

The Scoobies walked purposely into the mall, lead by Buffy. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Then Buffy stabbed a passerby with her stake and they exploded into dust.

Buffy – "I think we've got the place."

Xander – "Let's set up against the fountain there. Buffy, keep the vamps off our backs. Everyone else, try not to get run over when the running starts."

While the others set up shop next to the raised fountain, the judge appeared on the other side of the mall. From his outstretched hands, arcs of energy were sent through the crowd of people around him.

Giles – "Buffy. Shoot him."

Buffy grinned and pulled back on her bow.

Across the other side of the mall, an arrow thudded into the Judges shoulder and his concentration was shattered, along with the life destroying arcs flowing out of his hands.

Judge, booming - "Who dares! You are a fool. No weapon forged can stop- ARGH!"

The Judge clutched at the arrow now lodged in his eye-socket but couldn't quite get the strength to pull it out.

Angelus and the other vampires stared at the ancient being of destruction as he muttered obscenities from a long dead language.

Drusilla - "Do you need some help?"

Judge – "No. I can get it."

Then he pulled the arrow out, complete with his eye.

Judge, triumphantly – "Aha! See! I'm invincible. No weapon forged can stop me."

Then he exploded in a giant ball of intense flame and smoke when the anti-tank rocket literally blew him into pieces. The vampires around him had run for cover while he was distracted.

Xander lowered the rocket launcher and just stared at the destruction.

Cordelia – "Wow. Maybe guns really do turn girls on."

This shook Xander from his surprise and he went back into command mode.

Xander – "Buffy. Chase after the vamps. Everyone else, we need to pick up the pieces and keep them separate. We've got to take the chance that he's still alive after that."

Buffy chased the main vampires past the fall out from the explosion. The sprinklers were raining down overhead, drenching her but she didn't mind the water. It wasn't making her any colder than she already was. It was screwing with her hearing a little though.

Suddenly, Angelus came out of nowhere and struck her against the back of the head.

Buffy spun with the blow and slid along the wet ground onto her back.

Angel - "Hey lover. How about we forget about all this slayer schtick and just make up?"

Buffy - "I'm not your lover. You're not the man I love anymore."

Angel – "But I am. I'm more him than he ever was. This is me without restraints and I've got you to thank for it."

Buffy kipped up and faced off against him.

Buffy – "Angelus. This ends now."

Angel - "You think you're special, don't you? But you're just another unruly childe. Spike was just like you when we first made him and you know how he turned out."

Buffy – "Yeah. He's hiding at home in his wheelchair. Thanks but no thanks."

Buffy finished off the sentiment with a kick to Angel's face and followed up with a haymaker which he blocked and countered with a flurry of rapid punches which left her dazed. A kick to her face from him knocked her down again and he went back to gloating.

Angel – "You're still holding on to your humanity, aren't you? It doesn't matter. In time, you'll lose it. You'll beg for me to take you back. Don't you get it? You don't live in their world anymore. You're in mine."

Buffy roared as her game face turned on. She kept roaring as she got back up and charged him. He deflected her charge easily and caused her to crash straight through a display case.

Angel, laughing - "You're making my point for me. You're an animal."

She was fighting for her life and he wasn't even taking this seriously. His game face wasn't even on. Enraged, she ripped a fire axe straight out of its emergency box on the wall and threw it in a vicious overhead arch at Angel. The blunt back thudded against his head and he went down.

Slowly, he got onto his knees and instead of continuing the fight he just faced her, his face remarkably passive considering the huge purple line across his forehead.

Buffy raised her stake and got ready to finish the job but for some reason she couldn't.

Angel – "You can't do it. You can't kill me."

With a growl, she brutally kicked him in the groin. Angel grabbed his groin and curled up in pain.

Buffy – "Maybe I just want to hurt you first."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Outside Buffy's house.

Buffy and Giles were sitting in silence in Giles' car.

Buffy – "I should go. I really should go before my mom finds me parked with the school librarian. It won't look good."

Giles – "I won't say I'm proud of you. But I think I understand."

Buffy – "Giles. I don't know why I couldn't do it. I could hit him. I could make him suffer but I couldn't.. I couldn't kill him. I'm sorry. For everything."

Giles – "This has been very trying for all of us but it's not over. I believe the coming months will be even more, well, trying. Angelus, his profile, it makes me think he will be targeting you more than anything."

Buffy – "I know."

Giles – "Are you sure you're ready for Joyce?"

Buffy – "It's not like I haven't hidden things from her before."

Giles – "I suppose you're right. Oh and here. I picked this up for you earlier. I just forgot to give it to you."

Buffy brightened up as the prospect of a birthday present. Her smile turned upside-down when Giles brought out a blood pack.

Buffy – "My boyfriend turned evil, I died and I've acquired a new addiction. Yup, worst birthday ev-er. At least Mom said she'd take me shopping on the weekend. Ugh, during the DAY! Holy cow. My life just keeps…"

Buffy stopped talking, closed her eyes and took in a deep unnecessary breath.

Giles – "Are you okay?"

Buffy nodded, now opening her eyes.

Buffy – "Yeah. It's just my face almost did that thing. Um, I better go. Thanks for the lift."

Buffy left the car and walked up to the front door, knocking on it.

Joyce opened the door with a smile and a cup cake with a candle stuck in the top.

Buffy looked at Joyce oddly.

Buffy, forced - "Cute."

Buffy came in while Joyce walked off into the kitchen.

Joyce, from the kitchen - "I made pizza just the way you like it. With a phone."

Buffy sighed.

Buffy – "Um, mom? Is it okay if I eat it later? I feel a little sick and I don't have any appetite."

Joyce leaned out to look at Buffy from the kitchen entrance.

Joyce – "You look fine."

Buffy – "I really just want to go to bed."

Joyce walked back to Buffy and placed her hand on her forehead.

Joyce - "Buffy, you're so cold."

Buffy – "Yeah. I know. I think I'll just sleep it off. Okay?"

Joyce – "If you're sure. But Buffy, how was your birthday?"

Buffy – "You know. The usual."

Joyce looked a little saddened.

Joyce – "Well, um. Okay then. I'll put everything in the fridge for later. You focus on getting better."

Buffy, smiling weakly - "Don't worry. I will."

With her mother's concerns handled, Buffy walked up the stairs to cry herself to sleep.

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	4. 2a Crazy sunshine

Authors notes : This chapter takes place in the stead of "Phases" from the original BTVS show.

O-O-O-O

Scene - dark warehouse.

As far as Joyce knew, Buffy was seeing a specialist for her unique medical condition. Her symptoms were troubled sleep, skin cold to the touch and a distinct aversion to sunlight.

Buffy was sitting down on a chair with a veritable army of tweed wearing watchers surrounding her. In front of her, a watcher was showing her ink blots.

Buffy - "A road sign with little scorpions climbing up the sides."

The watcher put down that inkblot and lifted another.

Buffy – "Oh, that one's easy. It's a butterfly. It's even got antennae."

The watcher frowned and wrote something down on a pad, causing Buffy to frown too. Then he showed her another inkblot.

Buffy – "It's a Scallia demon that wants to plant its eggs inside your head."

Seemingly satisfied with that answer the watcher put down the card and picked up another. By the way the watcher reacted, that was a perfectly fine answer.

Buffy groaned.

Buffy – "Seriously, how long is this going to take?"

Travers, the head of the Watcher's council – "That's enough for now."

Buffy turned around and saw that Giles had come out of his meeting with the upper rung of the council.

Travers addressed the troops in the warehouse - "You are all dismissed."

Some of the watchers hesitated.

A lesser watcher – "But sir! We can't leave you alone with that creature."

Travers – "I'm safer in her presence than I am in yours. You will leave. Now!"

At their head's harsh tone, the rest of the honor guard left.

Buffy – "So what's the decision? I take it you're not going to kill me?"

Giles – "No. Apparently you were prophesized to become a vampire and yet be a force for good."

Buffy blinked, not expecting this.

Buffy – "Another prophecy? Nice. What's this one about?"

Travers – "It's a prophecy from the slayer Lambronazi, a very notable slayer."

Buffy, frowning – "But I haven't heard of her before."

Travers – "And for good reason. Her diaries are amongst the watchers greatest treasures. Their very existence has only ever been known by the highest echelon of the council and certain active watchers and Slayers throughout history. Now you and Rupert join their ranks."

Buffy – "What's so special about her?"

Travers – "She was an incredibly troubled girl who became even more so when she was called. She was so plagued by terrible visions that she couldn't properly function as the Slayer. After she took her own life and her diaries were read, the reason behind her calling became clear. Her diaries detailed many prophecies, almost all of which have been fulfilled and many of them have been leading up to this point."

Giles – "Towards you."

Buffy, still frowning - "Towards me? I don't get it."

Travers – "You herald the beginning of a new era for the council, a golden age. Since the foundation of the watchers council, the watchers have been, how should I put this? We have been powerless to a certain degree. You see, once a girl has been called, her life is forfeit. It seems that despite all we try, all we can do is help her come to terms with this. They might live three years if they're lucky but two is average. But in this new era, the universe is irrevocably altered somehow and this endless cycle of death is ended."

Buffy thought about what was just said and noted that they had not said that she was prophesized for causing this change, only that she would be there at the beginning of it.

Buffy, hopefully - "Yay for me?"

Travers – "Yes. I suppose so."

Buffy – "So how exactly do I fit into this again?"

Travers – "It's prophesized that you will become the guardian for a device which will eventually be used to bring forth this new era."

Buffy – "So no clues?"

Giles – "None at all."

Buffy sighed and one of the watchers came forward and placed a vault like metal box on the table next to Buffy. He unlocked it and pulled out a golden oblong on a long chain, which he handed to Buffy.

Buffy looked at it with disgust. It was shiny but remarkably heavy for its size and etched into both sides of the golden oblong were ugly faces with notable fangs. She guessed it looked slightly South American in origin but then Buffy wasn't an expert in such things.

Buffy – "And what's this supposed to be?"

Travers – "What you have in your hands is the last remaining amulet of Teznan. In her journals, Lambronazi outlined several tasks for the watchers council to complete. One of them was to slay Teznan and destroy all traces of his experiments into the dark arts except for one particular item, that amulet. After acquiring the amulet, we were instructed to hold it until it could be given to the abomination which is you."

Buffy – "Huh? Did you just call me an abomination?"

Travers, smiling slightly - "No. Lambronazi did. She always did have a way for words."

Buffy frowned and looked at the amulet.

Buffy – "So what am I supposed to do with this? Is this the device which I'm supposed to use to usher in a golden age?"

Travers – "No. The texts are a little vague on the exact nature of the device except for the fact that the watchers will be forever blind to its existence, even after it is used. Even Lambronazi couldn't foresee its nature, which is troubling in itself."

Buffy – "Okay then. So what am I supposed to do with this doohicky?"

Giles – "Wear it. It's a magical augmentation that will protect you against the sun."

Buffy blinked.

Buffy – "It does what?"

Giles, not hiding his smile - "It will allow you to walk around in sunlight."

Buffy – "Is.. is this some sort of trick? Like some funny way to dispose of vampires?"

Travers – "I assure you, it is not. Tests have proven its effectiveness to be ironclad. It also explains why Lambronazi was so adamant that Teznan's work would be destroyed. There's no telling what other augmentations he was working towards."

Buffy – "So I wear this and I won't burst into flames if I go outside?"

Giles - "Try it."

Buffy hung it around her neck then opened the door to exit the warehouse. As she did glaringly bright sunlight shot down through the door and Buffy flinched back instinctively. After some hesitation, she forced her hand into the sunlight, ready to pull it back and smother it in her jacket. When it didn't burst into flames, she slowly walked forward into the sunlight.

Then she slumped to her knees. Quickly, Giles was by her side, trying to help her back up.

Buffy, with happy tears in her eyes - "Giles, I can feel the sun. It feels so good. So warm."

Giles gave her an uncomfortable smile.

Giles – "That's great, Buffy. But you know what this means."

Buffy frowned.

Buffy – "What?"

Giles – "School."

O-O-O-O

Scene - Sunnydale high school Library.

Buffy was gleefully twirling herself around on the spot when the student arm of the Scoobies wandered into the library. They all paused when they saw Buffy there, acting brainless.

Xander – "Giles, why is Buffy here and why is she insane?"

Giles looked up from what he was reading.

Giles – "Hmm? What was that?"

Xander – "Buffy. Here. I thought she was being home schooled."

Buffy tried to stop spinning around and wave.

Buffy – "Hey guys."

Then she fell over sideways and burst into laughter.

Cordelia – "Xander's right. Buffy has definitely lost a few more marbles. Or is she marble-free now?"

Buffy got her balance back and bounded back onto her feet.

Buffy, grinning widely - "I'm not insane. I'm just happy. Insanely happy. That sky light mocks me no more."

Willow looked up and gasped at the sky light in the ceiling which was currently letting a stream of sunlight shine down through itself onto Buffy.

Willow - "Buffy! You're standing in sunlight!"

Buffy, still laughing - "I know. Isn't it great?"

Giles – "The watchers council bestowed a gift onto Buffy. An amulet that grants immunity to the effects of sunlight."

Xander gave him a weird look.

Xander – "Really? I thought they would be more likely to dust her. Not give her gifts."

Buffy – "I don't think they'll do that. Not with this new prophecy about me. Apparently, I usher forth a golden age. Isn't that just so cool?"

Cordelia – "She what?"

Buffy – "Tell them, Giles."

Giles - "Apparently Buffy plays a key role for the watchers council as it evolves into something else, something more capable than it currently is. I'm reading the prophecy now and I must admit it's astounding."

Buffy – "Yeah. See, there was this Slayer who wrote down like a ton of prophecies. She gave the council instructions on how to handle each one and for my one she told them not to dust me. And to give me this sunscreen medallion thing. Isn't that nice?"

Xander – "What makes the watchers think Buffy is part of this prophecy?"

Giles hemmed and read out a line of translation.

Giles – "The abomination, that's Buffy, will defy both life and death, having been born twice during the lull on the vampire's calendar."

Xander, frowning - "And what is that supposed to mean in English? And by English, I mean American."

Giles, sighing - "I'll translate further then. Buffy has defied death. She died and you resuscitated her. It could be said that she has defied life by becoming a vampire. As far as being born twice during the lull of the vampire's calendar, that part works too. Her birthday is almost exactly six months removed from the night of Saint Vigeous, the time of year when a vampire's strength is at its peak. She was also turned on her birthday, which could be said to be another type of birth."

This silenced Xander but intrigued Willow.

Willow – "What else does it say about her?"

Giles turned over the transcript before Willow could see it.

Giles – "Nothing you need to read. Some of it outlines very personal events in Buffy's life. How would you like it if I let Buffy shuffle through your locker or diary?"

Willow, pouting slightly - "Oh. Okay. But, um, does it say anything about us?"

Giles – "Actually it does."

Buffy, not expecting that - "Huh? What do you mean it does?"

Giles – "There are some passing references to people you know or will know in the future. Some of them could quite possibly be us."

Xander – "So it mentions a ruggedly handsome devil with a razor sharp wit?"

Giles raised an eyebrow at Xander.

Giles – "Now that you mention it, none of the characters within this prophecy match your description, except maybe this blinded fool fellow on the third page. I-I could be wrong."

Xander didn't look impressed.

Xander – "That's not funny."

Giles, not picking up on Xander's tone - "Actually, it would make a lot of sense."

Cordelia – "So you're saying that we've got prophecies about us now? That is so cool! So how famous to I get?'

Giles stopped searching through the texts and looked up at her.

Giles – "Umm. I don't think the author would have written something like that down. In fact, there's a possibility that none of us are in this prophecy. Apparently, Buffy could live for a very long time, outliving not only us but becoming an ancient. There's a mention of her, um, mating with immortality, blessed in a city of sanctity. I'm not entirely sure what that means but I find it suggestive of a long lifespan. Also, I have doubts that this much prophecy would fit into one lifetime."

Buffy – "Cool. Well, not so cool on how you guys will die of old age but cool! I bet I'll get to fly a jetsons hovercar in the future."

Oz – "That would be a plus."

Giles – "Buffy, I wouldn't be jumping for joy quite yet. It becomes a bit confused at one point but it seems you might pass along your status as the abomination to a different vessel and you either vacate the prophesies altogether or die from the process."

Buffy, frowning - "That doesn't sound like me."

Giles – "Yes, well, as I have said, prophecies are often open to interpretation."

Buffy – "Except for ones where you die. So far I've had two of those and it happened both times. Oh hey. Does it have anything about Angel in there?"

Giles – "It seems that you will get to know more than a few people who skirt the line between good and evil. Any number of them could be interpreted as Angel."

Buffy – "Angel doesn't skirt. He's either nice or completely evil."

Cordelia – "She's right. You can't call him indecisive."

Buffy – "I think I've had enough skylights for one day. How about we go get some lunch?"

Several of the scoobies looked at her strangely.

Buffy – "I never said I'd be doing any of the eating, did I? I just want to catch up. Have I missed anything important?"

Willow – "Xander's dating Cordelia."

Buffy gave Willow a shocked look.

Buffy – "How long was I gone? It only seemed like a week and a half to me."

Willow, giving Xander a dirty look – "It seems they've been keeping it secret for a while."

Buffy – "I can see why. But don't worry, Xander. We're your friends. We'll find a way to understand no matter how insane you've become."

Cordelia was about to object to that but instead held back.

Ignoring Cordelia's glare, Buffy pulled her lunch box out of her bag.

Buffy – "Okay, who wants to eat my lunch? Mom packed me a banana, an apple and pastrami on rye. I'll trade for anything that can get rid of the taste of my actual lunch."

Xander – "Would a twinkie do?"

Buffy considered this and nodded.

Xander – "Then I'm your man. I brought three."

Buffy gave him a smile and then the younger generation left, leaving Giles alone with his work.

After the children left, Jenny Calendar came in.

Giles didn't notice her at first and she hemmed slightly.

Giles, looking up - "Oh. Ms Calendar. I-uh."

Jenny – "Rupert. I-um, do you have a minute?"

Giles looked down at the texts on his desk, sighed and looked back up at Jenny.

Giles – "I guess it's a good as time as any. I can just tell I'll be trying to decipher this for weeks."

Jenny looked over at the texts.

Jenny – "What is it?"

Giles – "Prophecies. You know how those are."

Jenny – "The pergamum codex? I could help translating."

Giles – "Uh, no. You wouldn't have heard of this. It's a watchers council secret."

Jenny backed off a little.

Jenny – "I see. About Buffy?"

Giles – "Yes. As a matter a fact it is."

Jenny - "So. How is it.. going?"

Giles - "It's hard slogging. Most prophecies don't give enough information. This one is overflowing with it. How I'm supposed to figure out what is important and what is a passing fancy, I don't know."

Jenny – "I'm sure you'll get it."

Giles – "I think I'm afraid that I will. The more I read, the more I don't like what I'm reading. When I first read that Buffy was going to die by the master's hand, I didn't think it could get any worse. But this, it's a nightmare. No wonder the author committed suicide."

Jenny – "Maybe you're not reading it right."

Giles, angrily – "I damn well am."

The way Giles sighed and gave Jenny a sorry look, he didn't want to direct that anger at her.

To say things have been strained between Jenny and Giles recently would be understating it. There was always the promise of more between them but since Jenny had a run in with Giles' past, she had chosen to take a break from that promise. Matters became even more strained after Jenny's gypsy past was revealed. Buffy's overt hostility towards her didn't help at all either. Although Giles didn't respect the wishes of this dead version of Buffy as much as the live one. It seemed a small part of him died that night with Buffy.

The part that cared for Buffy.

Now to him, Buffy was merely a weapon to him. A tool. A slightly defective tool at that considering her inability to slay her sire. From the start Giles had serious doubts about trusting her but now he didn't need to worry as much. His worries were eased by what some crazy slayer that had jotted down her mad ramblings in writing.

If he was a cynical, he would consider it all too convenient.

Jenny – "Cynical much?"

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Jenny – "What I mean to say is, you shouldn't believe everything you read. When you read that Buffy was going to die, you never expected her come back to life, did you?"

Giles – "No. I'll admit that. However, this set of prophecies expected it."

Giles ruffled through some of the papers and prodded one of them with a finger as if it was offensive.

Giles – "See. It's written right there."

Jenny leant over and read the line.

Jenny – "Wow. That's.."

Giles – "Scary? That's nothing. Wait until you see what else is in this. Evils and corruptions I've never heard the like of and it seems we'll get to look forward to the very fabric of reality being torn apart like tissue paper on more than one occasion."

Jenny – "So more of the same then?"

Giles groaned but had to smile at her dry humor.

Giles – "Yes. More of the same."

O-O-O-O

In the lunch room, the youngsters were sitting around a table. Somehow they had sat so Buffy was sitting on one side and everyone was sitting on the other. She didn't seem to mind, content with eating her recently acquired Twinkie.

Cordelia, breaking the awkward silence - "You're looking perky."

Buffy - "Thanks. I feel it too. I think it's the sunlight. I never really appreciated it until it was gone. Before, I hardly noticed it. Now, I can really feel it. It's more than just warm. It's gentle and embracing and by the looks you're giving me, you think I'm insane."

Willow – "No. We don't think that."

Buffy – "Anyway, how's things been? Like how's Oz been?"

Willow looked over to Oz then back to Buffy.

Willow – "He's been good."

Oz, agreeing - "I've been good."

Cordelia – "Oh! And when Xander and I were parked last night, we got attacked by a werewolf."

Buffy looked shocked.

Buffy – "Wait. You and.. You were parked with Xander?"

Willow – "I know. It's horrible."

Cordelia – "Haha, very funny. But hey, werewolf. That's something Slayer's deal with, right?"

Buffy, to Cordelia - "I guess."

Buffy, now to Xander - "But don't you think you're taking it a little fast? Parking is a big step. Are you sure you want to .. park like that.. with Cordelia?"

Xander, groaning - "Buffy, who else would I be parking with? As far as I can tell, I'm not going to get a chance with anyone else in high school."

Buffy, frowned and reluctantly nodded.

Buffy – "You're right. It's not really my business. So Werewolf? Neat. New. That'll keep me busy. You've told Giles, right?"

Xander – "Yes. We've told Giles."

Buffy – "Good. Then I'll uh talk to him then. Um. Thanks for the twinkie, Xander. It was scrum-diddly-umptious."

Now Buffy was back to being all smiley and Xander tried smiling back.

Xander – "That's nice. Um. Don't take this the wrong way but did the watchers give you something else besides that amulet? Maybe some pills or something?"

Buffy, shaking her head - "Nope. I'm just really relieved, you know? I thought that just because I died, my life was over."

Oz – "That's normally how it works."

Buffy – "Exactly. But it looks like I get to have my cake and eat it too."

Xander – "But I thought you'd be at least a little bummed about Angel."

Buffy – "Oh, I was. I still am. I'm not so good at boyfriends going evil and killing me. But prophecies? But prophecies killing me I can handle. Going to school, fighting werewolves and prophecies where I die a horrible death, that's home to me."

Xander - "What exactly do you do in this prophecy?"

Buffy – "I dunno. Well, to be more precise, Giles doesn't know. There's a bunch of world saving and deering-do but he hasn't coughed up any details yet. I wish he would. I'd like to get started now."

Willow – "I think I can understand that. Why put it off?"

Buffy – "Yeah. But I hope it's not too hard."

Willow – "If it was easy, someone else would have done it. I'm sure it's very Buffy specific. Like, maybe you need to, um, do something that you're very very good at doing."

Oz – "I hear she's good at slaying."

Buffy, nodding - "That's true but.. Not much else though."

Buffy, considering this - "Huh. That's odd."

Willow – "What is?"

Buffy – "Me. I really doubt I usher in a golden age just by slaying something. But that's all I'm good at."

Willow – "That's not true. You've got tons of things you're good at."

Buffy – "Really? Then name one."

Xander – "You're very cute."

Cordelia – "And you're great if you leave a carjack at home."

Buffy – "But those aren't really ushering qualities, are they?"

Willow – "Maybe it's something you learn or it's some skill that you never knew you had."

Oz – "Plus, you've got this vampire deal going for you."

Buffy gave him a sour look.

Buffy – "I don't think that's going to help me at all."

Willow - "Hey, I think he's onto something. Think about it, Buffy. You could give the council a new understanding about vampires. They've never had a vampire willing to just cough up information before. Sure, we know about stakes and sunlight but there's bound to be more to them, isn't there?"

Buffy – "I doubt it."

Willow – "Well, uh, what about that, um, thing in the hallway?"

Buffy's eye shot wide open.

Xander – "What thing in the hallway? I don't remember a thing. What is this thing?"

Buffy – "Willow. I don't think anyone wants to know about that thing. Let's just put that thing behind us, okay?"

Willow – "But that thing could be important."

Buffy suddenly stood up, getting upset.

Buffy – "No. It's not. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go freshen up before class."

They watched her go with some worry.

Willow – "I think I should go after her."

Cordelia, flippantly - "Eh, let her go."

If anything, this propelled Willow into action quicker.

Some football jocks were passing Buffy as the came the other way and one of them, Larry, leaned over and said something to Buffy. Willow didn't catch all of it but she did catch Buffy's name being said, along with her name. Buffy obviously took offense at this and pushed the lead jock away.

With what looked like a simple push, Larry was launched off his feet and slammed into the lockers against the wall. Buffy kept walking on obliviously but the jocks stared at her like she just grew another head. Willow gasped, realizing what a mistake it was to let a vampire go to high school. Before the day was over, there would be another mob trying to burn her at the stake.

Then the jocks started laughing at their fallen comrade as Larry got to his feet. He started laughing too as he held his ribs.

Willow, approaching them - "Larry, are you okay?"

Larry – "Yeah. I just slipped. Takes more than that to take down me. Aint that right, guys?"

The guys agreed with a bunch of grunts and slaps on the back which sounded like some foreign language to Willow. But they seemed content to block out the whole affair so Willow moved on, chasing after Buffy.

Buffy entered the toilets and Willow intercepted her on the inside.

Buffy – "I don't want to talk about it."

Willow - "But you have to, don't you see? You can't just bottle things up."

Buffy, growling - "Keeping things bottled up is the only reason you're not dead."

Willow backed off and Buffy looked ashamed.

Buffy – "I'm sorry. I just- I don't want to be like this. I can't control it. I'm scared I'll just lose control again and.. and I won't be me anymore."

Willow – "This has been hard on everyone."

Buffy – "Has it? Really? Because that's not it looks like."

Willow, ashamed – "Giles told us to."

Buffy gave Willow a weird look and Willow explained in more detail.

Willow – "Giles told us to act as if nothing had happened."

Buffy – "Why? Oh, I get it. To help me keep hold of my humanity. Well, it's too late, I - Whoa!"

Buffy looked shocked, yet again.

Willow – "What?"

Buffy pointed to the mirror.

Willow – "What? Oh. Uh, I didn't think vampires had reflections."

Buffy, looking closer at her reflection, – "They don't."

Willow – "It must be the amulet."

Buffy, fixing her hair - "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?"

Willow, confused – "About what?"

Buffy – "My hair. Look! Split ends!"

Willow - "Your hair looks fine. I thought you were just trying a new look."

Buffy – "And I'm so pale."

Willow – "Buffy. You look fine."

Buffy – "Did you bring any make up with you? Maybe some blusher."

Willow – "I don't even own any make up."

Buffy turned away from the mirror and blinked at Willow.

Buffy – "Really?"

Willow, shaking her head - "Nope. Unless you count my strawberry flavored chapstick. Which you aren't, are you? That's why I go to your house every time I want to wear make up."

Buffy – "Some day soon, we're going to have a sit down and I'm going to teach you all about grown up things."

Willow – "No. That's okay."

Buffy – "I insist. It might.. It might get Oz's attention."

Willow, looking more interested - "You think?"

Buffy – "Sure. I'm curious to see what you'd look like glammed up."

Willow – "I don't know about glamming. It sounds a little..."

Buffy – "Scary? It is the first time. But you'll grow to love it. Umm, I know it's none of my business but have you and Oz…?"

Willow, crestfallen – "No. We haven't done anything. We don't even kiss."

Buffy – "He probably doesn't want to push anything on you. Think about how would you feel if you were dating someone a year below you?"

Willow shivered at that thought.

Buffy – "Exactly. Making a move on you would make him feel like a dirty old man."

Willow – "But I want him to make a move on me. I'm-I'm ready. I really am. It's not my fault I look like a kid."

Buffy – "Umm. Willow, I just have to say something and it never leaves this room."

Willow – "What?"

Buffy – "You've got to promise."

Willow – "Okay. I promise. What is it?"

Buffy – "Umm, you remember that thing in the hallway? When I.. you know, It's like since I uh, changed, I uh.. I like girls."

Willow, with wide eyes - "You.. you what?"

Buffy, quickly – "It's a vampire thing. I can't control it. I don't even want it. But let's just say, you have nothing to worry about in the appeal department and leave it at that. Okay?"

Willow, very uncomfortably - "Okay."

Buffy – "And don't tell anyone about this. Especially Xander."

Willow – "I won't. I promise."

Buffy, letting out a sigh of relief - "Thanks. You know, it's true what they say. You really do feel a lot better afterwards."

Willow – "Do you still like boys?"

Buffy – "Of course. It-I-uh, can we just not talk about it? This is really embarrassing."

Willow – "Fine."

The two girls stood there for a while before anything was said.

Willow – "So Cordelia-"

Buffy – "Major hottie."

Willow, revolted – "Oh god."

Buffy, looking like she just bit down on a lemon – "Welcome to my hell."

O-O-O-O

Scene – High school library.

A couple of hours later and school was over. Buffy walked in followed by Xander and Willow.

Giles looked up with one of those strange pleased smiles he always wore after he had spent a good day reading.

Giles – "Ahh, yes. Buffy. How was school?"

Willow - "Phys-ed was interesting."

Buffy - "Come on. Larry was totally grabbing my ass. What was I supposed to do?"

Willow – "Anything besides throw him to the ground and stand on his throat."

Giles – "Good god, Buffy! This boy, is he okay?"

Buffy - "Yeah. He's fine. He doesn't look it but Larry can really take a beating. Oh wait. No, he does look like it."

Giles – "But that's no reason to punish him. I realize this might be hard for you but you must learn some restraint."

Buffy, sighing – "Yes mom. I'll play nice."

Giles – "I'm serious. If you don't, we might have to remove you from school entirely."

Buffy took this threat more seriously.

Buffy – "Okay. I'll refrain from giving him more brain damage than he already has. So, what's up tonight? I hear we're going werewolf hunting. I've never slayed a werewolf before and I'm rearing to go."

Giles – "No. We are not going to slay them."

Buffy raised an eyebrow.

Buffy – "Then we're going to .. what?"

Giles – "The Hollywood depiction of werewolves is quite accurate. For the most part, they're normal people. It's only during the full moon and apparently the two nights on both sides of the full moon that they become werewolves. In all likelihood, they're an innocent who ordinarily would have no compulsion to harm anyone."

Buffy – "Seems to be a recurring theme, doesn't it?"

Giles – "Also, they have only targeted animals so far."

Xander – "Its okay, Buffy. He already told me off for jumping towards silver bullets too."

Buffy – "Okay. I get it. No stakey. So, I'm thinking I tackle him to the ground then hogtie him rodeo style. I mean, it won't be able to turn me into a werewolf, will it?"

Giles – "That is true but I should warn you. Werewolves are more closely attuned to nature than most of the supernatural."

Buffy, not really caring - "Uh huh."

Giles – "Because of this, they, uh, I believe they tend to see vampires as a threat, not only territorially but because of their unnatural nature."

Buffy – "Oh. You're talking about me now. So what? You think he'll target me specifically?"

Giles – "If confronted, yes, I believe so."

Buffy – "Good. It'll stop them from targeting someone human."

Giles – "From what I have read, werewolves can be incredibly resilient. You shouldn't take them lightly."

Buffy, smiling widely – "Oh good. And I thought this was going to be easy."

Giles, to Willow and Xander - "I don't think we'll need your help in this matter. Too many people may scare away the werewolf."

Xander, nodding towards Buffy behind her back - "Are you sure?"

Giles – "Uh, yes. I think we will okay together."

Buffy, without turning - "Xander, I'm not going to bite Giles."

Xander, trying to act hurt - "I never said you were going to."

Buffy – "I'm undead, Xander. Not stupid."

Willow – "She's right. She won't bite Giles."

Buffy – "Not that you're not biteable, Giles but uh.. I wouldn't… and it's a good thing I can't blush anymore because whoo! I'd be so red now."

Willow to Buffy – "But if you have any more surprises like in the hallway, you'll call me, okay? It doesn't matter how embarrassing it is, I'll still respect you. Okay?"

Buffy nodded - "Thank you, confidant Willow. You don't know how much I appreciate you being here for me."

Xander – "Excuse me but I really want to know. What happened in the hallway?"

Buffy and Willow, in unison - "Nothing."

Buffy – "Anyway, I doubt I'll have anymore surprises. I reckon I've got this vampire thing down."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	5. 2b Bark at the moon

Scene – Sunnydale national park in the hills.

Several occupied cars were parked around the grass while Giles and Buffy were camped out by the tree line, waiting for the werewolf.

Buffy, cringing for some reason Giles couldn't fathom – "Do we have to wait for the werewolf here?"

Giles – "This was where Cordelia was last night so it makes sense we should wait here. Uh, are you sure you're okay? You look ill."

Buffy – "I'm fine. I just need some fresh air. Is it just me or is it hot in here?"

Giles, looking at her strangely - "We're outside."

Buffy – "Oh, so we are. Umm, I think I need a drink then."

Buffy quickly twisted the cap off her thermos and knocked it back, making disconcerting purring noises as the blood slid down her throat.

To Giles, it was a quiet night under the stars. To Buffy, the night was alive, an orchestra of gentle moans and smacking lips.

Giles – "Did you hear that?"

Buffy stopped drinking and looked over at him with glazed eyes.

Buffy – "Huh?"

Giles – "I said, did you hear that? That noise right then."

Buffy – "Nope. I haven't heard anything. Particularly from that car over there."

Giles – "From deeper inside the park, I believe I heard something."

Buffy, keen to leave – "Let's go check it out then."

Once out of ear shot from lovers lane, Buffy rested against a tree and breathed in and out a few soothing lungfuls of night air. Buffy considered kicking the habit of breathing but decided it wasn't a dirty one at all. In fact, it was strangely soothing considering how futile the act was.

Giles – "What's wrong?"

Buffy – "Oh, nothing. I'm just, uh-"

She didn't need to make up a suitable excuse as Giles yelped, cutting her short. When Buffy turned around she found Giles tangled up in a net trap. From behind a boulder, a hunter with a double barreled flintlock rifle came out.

Hunter – "Gotcha! What the hell?"

The hunter lowered his rifle and stared at Giles then spotted Buffy walking up to him.

Buffy - "Kudos. It seems you've snared a tweed-breasted librarian. Very rare this side of the pond. But I hear they'll take away your permit if you poach them. So, if it's not too much to ask, could you cut him down?"

The hunter didn't see any harm in it so he pulled out a skinning knife and cut the taut rope keeping the net up. Giles fell down before Buffy had a chance to catch him.

Buffy, wincing – "Ooh, are you okay?"

Giles, getting up with a kink in his back – "I'll live. But I say, what's your game?"

Cain, the hunter – "The name's Cain. I'm a hunter. Most people can tell by the rifle. Look, why don't you just go back to canoodling in your car where it's nice and safe? Haven't you heard there's a dangerous wild animal around?"

Giles, infuriated – "We were not canoodling."

Cain, laughing – "You don't have to preach to me. Just one question. When you're on a date, whose running her lemonade stand?"

Giles – "But we weren't - Buffy, tell him."

Buffy, not really listening to Giles – "This dangerous wild animal. You're hunting it?"

Cain – "It's what I do, little lady."

Buffy – "Uh, I don't know if you know this but it's not a bear."

Cain – "You don't say."

Buffy – "It's a werewolf."

Cain hardly reacted at first then he laughed at Buffy.

Cain – "How did you know that, little lady? Hey, you're not from fish and game, are you?"

Buffy and Giles did a double-take.

Cain – "That would be a no. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a werewolf out there with my name on it."

Buffy – "We're hunting it too."

Now it was Cain's turn to double-take.

Cain – "With what? Where's your gun?"

Buffy – "We aren't hunting it to kill it. We're taking it alive."

Cain – "Obviously you really don't know what you're getting into. Girlie, werewolves aren't just people with a bad hair problem. They're animals. They'll bite your throat out before you can blink. Best you just go home and let the professionals take care of this. Say, you're a local, aren't you? You know where else boys and girls get together around here?"

Buffy – "Uh.. why?"

Cain – "Since Fido hasn't been here all night, he must be somewhere else. And they're suckers for teen spirit. They can smell it miles away."

Buffy, mumbling to herself – "Not the only one."

Cain – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "Nothing."

Cain – "So how about it? Know of a party going on?"

Buffy, shrugging - "Sorry. Can't think of anywhere."

Cain – "Not playing ball? Typical. But you better wish I find them before they find you."

With that said, Cain turned away and left the clearing. Buffy turned with a purpose and started to leave too.

Giles, hurrying after her - "I take it you know where it will be?"

Buffy – "I've got a hunch. Let's just hope we get there before the great white hunter does."

O-O-O-O

Scene – The bronze.

Willow and Cordelia were sitting down at a table.

Cordelia – "You should hear him, continually going on about Buffy."

Willow – "Xander took it pretty hard."

Cordelia – "But she's not even gone. She's walking around like nothing happened. But him, he's in mourning. Do you think he'd ever be in mourning if I died? I don't think so."

Willow, frowning – "He, uh, might."

Cordelia – "You don't seem so sure about that."

Willow – "No. I think he would mourn. He's the type."

Suddenly the werewolf jumped down onto their table from the second floor. They both screamed and then the whole room started screaming.

O-O-O-O

Scene - Outside the bronze.

Giles' old 1963 Citroen DS19 skidded to a stop outside the Bronze, just in time to watch everyone inside run outside.

Buffy got out and habitually took in a deep breath. The air was thick with exciting, intoxicating smells that made Buffy's head dizzy and made her mouth smile curl into a vicious smile.

Giles, as he got out – "It looks like your hunch was right."

Buffy didn't hear this, as she was distracted by the running, screaming bronzers.

Giles nudged her and she flinched back to reality with a growl.

Giles – "Buffy. The werewolf. Go after it."

Buffy – "Right. Sorry."

Then she was off, just making it through the front doors before the bouncer closed them.

Once inside, the doors slammed shut and locked. She found herself very alone on the inside.

The smell of panic and desire was even thicker here, nearing claustrophobic and Buffy shook her head to clear it. It didn't work.

She heard something from the stage and slowly approached it, taking a chain from out of her backpack as she did. She reached out with her vampire hearing and found a soft but very persistent throbbing sound.

It was a heart beat.

She jumped on the stage and the werewolf came out from its hiding place behind the drums, growling. Buffy instinctively growled back as her game-face turned on. Somewhere in her clouded thoughts there was some part of her mind that deciphered the werewolf's intentions.

Stopping herself from agitating the werewolf into an attack, she tried something different. She backed down and silenced herself.

It seemed to work and the werewolf looked at her curiously, almost dog like.

For a few moments, they stood like that, the werewolf analyzing Buffy and Buffy thinking about something.

It was then Buffy who took the initiative, slowly couching down onto her knees and letting out a low, almost sad keening. She let it out before she realized what message she had given.

The man-wolf slowly edged towards and Buffy's brain just caught onto the fact that she had just given it the supernatural equivalent of a mating call. She was trying to be friendly but not that friendly. Hell, she didn't even know where those sounds inside her were coming from.

The werewolf noticed her hesitation and hesitated himself, his muzzle so close to her neck that it was huffing hot air down her shirt.

Then she heard metal sliding against metal and a quick snap. The werewolf pushed her away and jumped back. Before Buffy realized what was happening, Cain fired his flintlock at the werewolf but missed. Then the werewolf jumped through a window, out into the alleyway behind the bronze.

Cain – "Dammit!"

Buffy covered her face until it turned back to normal and then confronted the hunter.

Buffy – "What the hell do you think you were doing!"

Cain – "Me? What were you doing? Letting it eat you?"

Buffy – "No, I was-"

Cain – "You were what? Being nice to it and hoping it wouldn't bite your head off?"

Buffy – "Uh, yeah. That's exactly what I was doing."

The front doors unlocked and Giles and Willow were the first ones in.

Willow, calling out – "Buffy."

Buffy – "Over here."

Willow – "Did you get it?"

Buffy, angrily – "Does it look like I got it?"

Cain – "Jesus Christ, there's more of you? It's fricken amateur hour."

Willow blinked at Cain, seeing him for the first time.

Willow – "Who's this?"

Cain – "The man who's going to get that pup."

Cain, now pointing at Buffy – "And you. If you know what's good for you, you'll keep out of this. If that doggie kills anyone tonight, it's on your head."

Then Cain left the club on the slim hope of pursuing his quarry before sunrise.

Giles looked over to Buffy who was still on her knees on the stage.

Giles – "Are you okay?"

Buffy – "Uh. Yeah. Fine."

Giles – "What happened?"

Buffy looked around and found that there were too many people around for talking about such matters out loud. So she got up, put her bag on and took them outside.

On the outside of the Bronze, Cordelia was waiting by her car for them.

Cordelia, yelling over to them and pointed – "It got away. Down that way."

Buffy – "We know. I was there."

Cordelia, as they got closer – "Aren't you going after it?"

Buffy shook her head - "Nah. It'll be long gone by now. It can really move."

Willow – "So what happened?"

Buffy, now excited - "Oh! It was amazing. Giles, I can talk werewolf!"

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "Okay, it's not really talking, more like growling and hissing and snarling. Yes, that's it. I can growl werewolf."

The others gave her a sanity questioning look.

Buffy – "I'm serious. When it growls at me the vampire part of me understands what it's trying to say and I can talk back to it too. It's just simple things like I-want-to-kill-you, I-want-to-be-your-friend, I-want-to-know-where-a-good-salt-lick-is, Hey!-that's-my-cave-get-out-of-it. You know, animal things. I almost got the werewolf on my side before Long John Silver scared them off."

Willow looked to Giles who was perplexed.

Giles – "I-I haven't heard of anything like this before. I shall have to consult my books."

Willow, to Giles – "I don't think you'll find anything."

Giles – "Oh, uh, why not?"

Willow – "This was what I was talking about before. It's information which you could only get from a vampire. I can't imagine a watcher interrogating a vampire and getting that sort of information out of them. No one would even think of asking about it."

Buffy – "She's right. People usually don't tie vampires down for lengthy conversations. At least, I don't."

Giles – "But I still think there would be something in my books about this."

Buffy – "Why would you think that? Before we went out to capture the wolf, you told me that werewolves and vampires don't mesh. Now I know, from first hand experience, they can mesh. In fact, that werewolf really wanted to mesh with me pretty badly."

Willow, not understanding – "What do you mean?"

Cordelia stifled a laugh and Giles cleaned his glasses. Willow looked at both of them in confusion.

Willow – "No, really. What do you mean?"

O-O-O-O

The next day, at the library.

Oz walked in during the middle of a conversation between Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander.

Xander – "All I'm saying is Buffy really knows how to pick men."

Before Buffy could retort, the four scoobies noticed Oz and turned to face him.

Oz – "Hey, What's up?"

Xander, smirking – "Buffy almost got some action from the wolfman last night."

Oz - "They-they tried to fight her? Buffy, are you hurt?"

Xander, chuckling – "Not that type of action, Oz. I'm talking about sweet sweet loving."

Oz – "W-What?"

Buffy, growling – "Xander. Shut up about that."

Xander – "Oh alright."

Buffy – "But tonight, if I see them, I'm going to take them down. They killed Theresa and okay, I hardly knew her, but no one kills anyone on my watch. Unless it's me, uh, killing someone else and that someone else is evil and.. you know."

Oz, shocked – "Theresa? They.. oh no."

Giles – "And they will hunt again tonight. So Buffy, you've got one more chance."

Oz – "Another night where they turn into a wolf?"

Buffy – "That's right. And tonight I'm really going to give them something to howl about."

Xander couldn't help himself and laughed at what Buffy said. He stopped himself after Buffy and Willow gave him cold glares.

Xander – "Hey, you know what we should do. We should find them BEFORE they turn tonight. There's a very human werewolf out there and I bet they're making fun of us right now."

Willow, smirking – "I doubt it."

Buffy – "No. I can picture that. They're probably telling their friends about how they almost scored with me last night… not that they almost scored. I'm just saying, men, they lie like that."

Xander – "Really? I don't."

Willow – "That's because if you did, we'd kill you."

Xander – "Good point."

Oz – "But how can you tell who is a werewolf? There's no way to tell. We don't even know if they're a girl or a boy."

Buffy – "Trust me. They're a boy. Either that or they're a very open minded girl."

Oz, frowned - "This is.. That is embarrassing."

Buffy – "You don't have to tell me that."

Xander – "Besides, there's got to be plenty of ways to find a werewolf. Giles has books on them and I'm practically an expert."

Willow – "On account of being a hyena."

Xander – "I know what it's like to crave the taste of freshly killed meat, to be completely taken over by those uncontrollable urges, to revel in the slaughter of innocent prey… uh. Buffy. You've got- you've got some drool. Just um."

Buffy, wiping her mouth - "Sorry. I missed breakfast. I'll uh, be standing over there."

Buffy rushed over to the other side of the room and pulled out her thermos and wolfed down some warm blood from it.

Xander – "I'm really starting to get worried about her. She enjoys the red stuff far too much."

Willow, trying to ignore the vampire in the room - "Go on. You were talking about being a ravenous eating machine."

Xander – "Umm, so where was I? That's right. I know how to think like this werewolf. Lemme just get into character here. I'm big. I'm bad. I've got gnashers the size of Oklahoma city. Oh my god. I know who the werewolf is."

Willow, shocked – "Xander. It's you?.. Or are you like a were-hyena?"

Xander – "No. Not me. Larry! It's so obvious. He's got the dog bite and he's the biggest ball of misplaced testosterone I've ever seen."

Oz let out a sigh of relief which no one else noticed.

Giles – "That's not exactly damning evidence."

Xander – "But it's a start. I'm going to talk to him and force a confession."

Confident in his conclusions, Xander left the room to chase down Larry and Buffy came back to the conversation.

Buffy – "If it's not Larry. We should make plans for tonight. I'm thinking we lure them somewhere. Umm, what would a werewolf like to eat? A dead rabbit?"

Oz – "Cocktail wieners."

Buffy gives him a weird look.

Giles – "He's right. Everyone likes those. But Buffy, I don't think we can trust it to be civil. It's too dangerous, too unpredictable and too wild. With Theresa dead, now it's a man killer. That means we need to take it out of the fight any way we can. In fact, I believe I know how to achieve such an effect."

Buffy – "Does it involve something pointy?"

Giles – "More or less. More or less."

Giles went into his office and Buffy tailed after him, leaving Willow and Oz alone.

Willow, to Oz – "Are you okay? You sort of knew Theresa, didn't you?"

Oz, clearly troubled – "Uh, yeah. I-It's a lot to deal."

Willow – "It is. But we can do stuff to help. Sometime it feels good to help."

Oz – "Uh huh."

Willow, holding up a book, hopefully – "Like we could look things up and-and find something to crack this mystery. We could do it together, uh, tonight."

Oz, shaking his head and backpedaling - "I-I can't. I've got something to do."

Willow – "Oh so maybe-"

Oz – "I can't. I've got to go."

He turned and almost ran out of the library away from Willow. Willow spots Buffy watching from Giles' office and they both look at each other sadly.

Buffy – "I'm sure he'll come around. He just needs some time."

Willow nodded but internally she wasn't so certain.

Buffy – "But hey, at least you've got books to keep your mind off things."

Willow, pulling out her laptop and unfolding it on the desk – "Actually, I just thought of something. We could profile the werewolf and check the police records for people who fit the description."

Buffy – "I don't know. Furry and virile aren't much to go on."

Willow, giving Buffy a weird look - "Virile?"

Buffy, embarrassed – "I just got that impression."

Willow – "But what about size? Height? Fur color?"

Buffy – "Size? Kind of werewolf sized. I dunno. They all look the same to me. The fur was .. mottled."

Willow – "Did you see any sort of tattoos or markings?"

Buffy – "Sorry. I was distracted by the whole werewolf thing. But now that I think of it, I don't think they would have any. They were definitely younger. Around our age."

Willow – "How could you tell?"

Buffy, tilting her head – "I don't know. I can just tell. Also, I think they know me. There was some definite recognition going on there."

Willow – "So you think it's someone here at school?"

Buffy – "I'm certain of it. I can almost smell them. Actually, I think I can smell them."

Willow raised an eyebrow.

Buffy, taking a few sniffs of air – "No really. I can smell them. I'm sure of it. It's a vampire thing. You know, with my enhanced sense of smell."

Willow – "Yes. I know about that but you really think you can track them?"

Buffy nodded and walked forwards, sniffing the air as she did. Then she turned around with a confused look on her face.

Buffy – "Nope. Sorry. I was just tracking you. Strange."

Willow – "And we know I'm not the werewolf."

Buffy looked at her skeptically.

Willow – "Oh come on. I was with Cordelia all last night."

Buffy – "That in itself is reason for investigation."

Willow gave Buffy an unimpressed look.

Buffy, sighing – "Okay. I'll admit it. My nose stinks."

Willow – "Maybe you just need practice."

Buffy – "I think I'm having a hard time distinguishing the icky-werewolf smell from the normal yummy smells around."

Willow – "Yummy smells?"

Buffy – "You know. Things like you and that smell in the supply closet."

Willow – "What's the smell in the supply closet?"

Buffy, shrugging – "I don't know. But it's kinda nice. It reminds me of the seashore for some reason."

Willow – "Like ozone?"

Buffy – "Maybe. What's ozone smell like?"

Willow – "Like the seashore. I heard that once in a chat room once. Now that I think of it, that's not the best authority. Umm, so what else can you tell me about this guy?"

Buffy thought about it and shook her head.

Buffy – "Not much."

Willow started typing the keys to her laptop with a determination.

Willow – "Then we'll have to work on psychological factors. Disturbing behavior, run-ins with authority and -"

Then Willow chuckled.

Buffy – "What?"

Willow – "You won't believe who keeps coming up."

Buffy – "Now, I can explain that. Bad things just kept happening around me."

Willow, turning back to her lap top – "I'll keep looking."

Right then, Xander ran into the library and hid behind the door with a wild-eyed look of horror on his face.

Buffy went into action mode and expected something big and furry to chase Xander in. When nothing did, she and Willow relaxed somewhat.

Xander – "Buffy. Quick. Look into the hallway and check if Larry is out there."

Buffy did as he asked and shook her head.

Buffy – "No Larry. Is he the werewolf?"

Xander – "No. I think we can safely put Larry in the not-werewolf category. He's something else entirely. It actually explains a lot. Particularly how he always harassed girls like that, trying to fit in. Didn't he know someone would find out one day?"

Buffy – "Xander. What happened? He didn't get physical with you, did he?"

Xander, looking at her in horror – "What? God no."

Buffy – "Because I could go straighten him out for you."

Xander – "No. I-I don't think that's possible. We should just leave him alone."

Buffy – "Why? What did he say?"

Xander – "Um, it's not so much what he said. It's more what I found in his locker."

Buffy – "What was in his locker? Uh, hang on. How did you get into his locker?"

Xander – "Willow downloaded an anarchist text file about how to get into school lockers. Her anti-social tendencies sometimes come in handy."

Willow, beaming a smile at him – "Thanks."

Buffy, frowning – "Look. Larry could still be the werewolf. He seems the type. Did you see yesterday in the gym? He was humping my leg. If that doesn't scream canine, what does?"

Xander – "No, Buffy. He's not the werewolf. Just trust me on this."

Buffy – "Back to square one. Ahh, I suck."

Xander – "You don't suck. You're Buffy, the vampire that doesn't suck. You've sworn off it, haven't you?"

Buffy – "Well, not so much sworn. I just kinda said I wouldn't. Hang on. Theresa!"

Xander – "What about her?"

Buffy – "We just assumed she was killed by the werewolf because that's what the newspaper said. But it didn't say anything about her being mauled, just being dead in a general sense."

Xander – "So what?"

Buffy – "Xander. There's a lot more in Sunnydale that could've killed her besides the werewolf."

Xander – "Yeah. Like what?"

O-O-O-O

Scene – cut to funeral.

The room was empty except for Theresa in her coffin with Xander and Buffy hovering over her.

Buffy's pulled the scarf on her neck down to expose two small bite marks.

Buffy – "See. That's a vampire bite."

Xander – "But that's so obvious. Of course she was killed by a vampire. Why didn't they just put that in the paper instead of blaming it on the werewolf."

Buffy gave him an inpatient look.

Xander – "Oh, right. They didn't write that either. It's just another case of plausible deniability striking again."

Buffy looked down at Theresa and gently tugged the scarf back up to hide the bite. Then she just stood there with a sad look. A few moments of silence passed by and Xander placed his hand on her shoulder.

Xander – "Come on, Buffy. We should go."

Buffy – "Wait. It's almost time. I can feel it coming."

Xander – "You can feel what coming?"

Then Theresa's eyes flicked open and Xander let out a little yelp.

Theresa tried to get up but Buffy held her down with one hand to her chest.

Buffy – "Relax. You'll feel a little disorientated for a while."

Theresa blinked at Buffy, her eyes looking small and beady under the vampire scowl she had on.

Theresa – "Buffy? Oh, Angel said he knew you."

Buffy, blankly – "Angel turned you?"

Theresa – "Yeah. Where is he?"

Buffy – "He couldn't make it. The sun's out."

Then she looked over at Xander with a smirk.

Theresa - "A snack?"

Buffy – "Sure. Eat your heart out. Or better yet, eat his heart out."

Xander stared wide-eyed at Buffy as she let Theresa out of the coffin to eat him.

Then Buffy staked her in the back and the dead girl turned to ash.

Xander, sighing with relief – "Buffy. That's not too cool. Don't scare me like that."

Then he realized how she was looking at the pile of ash on the floor with such sad eyes and he stopped scolding her.

Buffy, almost whispering – "Angel turned her."

Xander, a little awkward – "He's not the same guy you knew."

Buffy – "And I'm not the same girl. Xander, I-I'm not supposed to feel like this."

Xander – "What do you mean?"

Buffy – "I'm not stupid. I know what you're say behind my back. I shouldn't be on your side at all."

Xander frowned and reluctantly brought Buffy into a hug, feeling it was the thing to do.

Buffy, crying into his shoulder – "But you're right. I'm a vampire. I know I shouldn't… I just don't get it. I shouldn't be like this. I should be like Angelus. But I'm not."

Xander – "I don't know if you could ever be like him. You're Buffy."

Buffy – "But I'm not. I'm just a shadow of her."

Xander, sadly – "Even a shadow of Buffy is better than no Buffy at all."

Buffy gently broke out of the hug and walked out of the room. Xander watched her go then followed, careful to walk around the pile of dust on the floor.

O-O-O-O

Scene - Dark unlit crypt.

The door to the room swung open after something hit it. Then Spike trundled in on his wheelchair. Artificial light flooded in through the open door to show a bed with Angelus and Drusilla on it and in various stages of undress.

Angelus, annoyed – "Spike. What is it?"

Spike – "I just had a vision. I don't believe it. My first one."

Angelus and Drusilla both looked at him crookedly.

Spike – "I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."

Angelus ground his face into his hand while Drusilla smiled dreamily.

Drusilla – "That sounds wonderful."

Angelus – "Dru, it's from that infernal Star Trek movie."

Spike, sighing – "It's star WARS. Even Drusilla knew that."

Drusilla nodded which made Angel shake his head in disbelief.

Angel – "I expect this from the Xander Harris but not from MY side. Don't you have better things to do than watch science fiction?"

Spike – "Well yeah. But it's fun. Isn't it Dru? Remember when drive in theatres got popular?"

Drusilla, smiling wickedly – "You mean drive through take-ways."

Spikes – "That's right, luv. You remember. Good ducky."

Drusilla, to Angelus – "You should have been there."

Both Angelus and Spike rolled there eyes at that.

Angel, impatiently – "Spike. Why are you here?"

Spike – "Good news and bad news. Depends how you look at it. Bad news. That girly you turned last night got staked by Buffy. You know, that other girly you turned a while back. Good news. Our sources say that the um.. say, what do we call Buffy now?"

Angel, groaning – "We call her Buffy or the Slayer. I don't care. What about her?"

Spike, now smiling – "Well, the Slay-er is going to be hunting wolfie wolf bits tonight so that frees up us vampires, doesn't it?"

Drusilla, giggling – "I can go out, daddy?"

Angel, frowning and prodding the still angry machete wound in her chest – "No. You're still too weak."

Drusilla winced from the pain and laid back down, pouting.

Drusilla – "Bring something back for me?"

Angel, grinning – "Of course. Don't I always take care of you?"

Drusilla, ignoring Spikes steely glare – "Yes."

Angel, smiling evilly at Spike - "Thanks for the update, Spike. Now, if you'd please leave. I think Dru still has a few goes left in her tonight. That is unless you want to watch. That's about all you can do now, isn't it?"

Spike turned in his wheel chair almost robotically and then wheeled himself out, closing the doors behind him.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Oz's house.

As soon as school had finished, Oz brought some shackles and chains at one of the local hardware stores. He dumped them out of the shopping bag onto a table and looked down at them with a concerned look.

The inquisitive part of his mind pondered whether shackles were something you could buy in any hardware store or just those in Sunnydale.

The adult, responsible part of his mind was trying to figure out exactly what to chain himself to.

He was trying to ignore the part of his mind which wanted to howl at the open night sky and have sex with Buffy. That part was really freaking him out right now and Oz came to the reasonable conclusion that it needed a good shackling.

With a sigh of resignation, he put one of the shackles on a wrist and a knock sounded at the door. He ignored it but more came as he looked over at the front door. Seeing nothing else for it, he put the shackles down and opened it.

On the other side was an angry Willow, almost knocking at thin air where the front door used to be. She quickly put down her hand and barged her way in.

Oz – "Willow! What are you doing here?"

Willow – "Look, this thing we have, we have to work out what it is. We have to work it out right now because this isn't good enough."

Oz – "Willow. This really is not a good time."

Willow – "B-because there I was in the library alone and I was wondering why because I have a boyfriend, don't I?"

Oz, taking Willow by the arm and taking her to the door – "Uh, y-yeah. I'm your boyfriend. Now please leave. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Willow, pulling out of his grip – "No! You can't just tell me to go away because if we're dating then there has to be talking."

Oz doubled over in pain and half-fell against the couch.

Oz – "Willow. Get out of here, now!"

Willow blinked at him as he clutched his heart and completely fell over, behind the couch.

Willow – "Oz? Oz?"

She got no reply and inched closer towards the couch.

Willow – "Oz. Are you.. are you having a heart attack? Should I call an ambulance?"

Then the couch was pushed and slid aside. Behind it, in Oz's place, was the werewolf snarling at her.

Willow screamed and ran away, through the kitchen. The werewolf gave chase as Willow turned the corner into a hallway. Willow kept running, not bothering to look back. At the end of the hallway, she came across the back door. Once through the door she slammed it back closed just in time for to Oz hit it face first. The door shook off its hinges and the force shuddered through Willow, knocking her off her feet.

For a few seconds nothing happened and Willow just stared at the door. Then she heard a growl and saw the loose door pushed aside by the concussed werewolf. That was all Willow needed to know Oz was still okay, so she ran for it and tried to outrun her increasingly dangerous boyfriend.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library.

When Buffy got back to the library, she found Giles in the final preparations of his tranquilizer rifle.

He heard Buffy come in and turned to her.

Giles – "You're late."

Buffy – "Sorry. Um, Theresa wasn't killed by the werewolf. Angel turned her."

Giles – "She's a vampire?"

Buffy – "In the past tense. I guess Angel didn't tell her much about me. She thought I was her new friend. She didn't see the stake coming."

Giles paused for a moment before speaking.

Giles, sliding the bolt home in a business fashion – "I can think of less humane ways to die. Now, we have a werewolf to catch. Are you up to that?"

Buffy, nodding – "I'm up to it. Hey, don't you just love sounds of interlocking metal parts?"

Giles, considering the question – "Yes. They do seem to hold an attraction for me. Now let's go."

They both left the office and came face to face with a distressed and disheveled Willow. She even had a bit of bush caught in her hair.

Willow - "Oz is the werewolf!"

Giles – "Are you certain?"

Willow – "Yeah. He normally doesn't chase me around town like a wild animal."

Buffy – "Maybe he was just being friendly."

Willow – "I don't care how friendly someone is, Buffy. It doesn't make them grow hair and hop along on all fours."

Buffy – "Okay. So he's the wolfman. Where was it you saw him last?"

Willow - "He was right behind me and then he disappeared."

Then she spotted the rifle Giles was carrying and her eyes shot wide open.

Willow – "No! You can't kill him. He's Oz. We can't kill Oz. He's Oz!"

Giles – "And I don't intend to. I'm quite certain tranquilizer darts will work on werewolves just as they would on other wild animals."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	6. 2c a bite for a bite

Scene – Forest on the edge of town.

Buffy was tracking the smell of a fresh kill, which she thought would attract Oz. She stopped and Willow almost ran into her.

Buffy sniffed the air and looked around as if looking for something.

Willow – "You can smell Oz?"

Buffy – "No. I smell gunpowder. That hunter is nearby."

The hunter came out from behind a bush, aiming his double barreled flint lock rifle at the trio.

Cain, laughing a little - "You can smell my gunpowder?"

Buffy, frowning – "Yeah. So? And can you point that somewhere else?"

Cain – "Smelling gunpowder like that aint normal. You're a wolf, aren't you?"

Buffy – "No. I'm not a werewolf. I've just got a good nose. Gunpowder has a strong smell anyway. It's so, uh, I dunno, smelly."

Cain – "But I haven't even fired a shot yet."

Buffy, frowning – "Really? Because .. really?"

Willow stepped forwards with her hands up and Cain pointed the gun at Willow.

Cain – "Stay right there."

Willow – "L-look, sir, we can't kill that werewolf because it's my boyfriend."

Cain, sounding kinda crazy - "Gave him a love bite, did you?"

Willow, confused – "What? You think- I'm not a werewolf. I mean, hey look! Full moon."

Cain – "I've heard of your kind before. You can change between wolf and man at will. It makes a lot of sense now. It explains why the wolf didn't kill the blonde at that bar. And it explains why you're all hunting werewolves without any proper weapons. My god, is that a paintball gun?"

Giles – "It's a tranquilizer rifle."

Cain – "Ahh, right. So I'll shoot you first then."

Giles barely had any time to react before Cain pointed his rifle at him and fired. Somehow, Buffy found the time to stand in front of him and take the brunt of a silver round.

Then Cain turned the gun to Willow and fired the second barrel. Again, Buffy took the blow. This time, she spun with the shot and fell onto her hands and knees.

While Cain was empty Giles leveled up the tranquilizer gun and shot him.

Cain was asleep before he even hit the ground.

Willow, at Buffy's side – "Oh god. Buffy. Are you okay?"

Buffy didn't respond. Instead, her game face turned on and she looked like she was gagging on something. Then she fell over sideways and Willow saw the two wet splotches against Buffy's black T-shirt where she had been shot.

Buffy, from the ground – "That went well."

Giles – "You should be okay. Vampires are notoriously immune to gunfire."

Buffy, glaring at Giles – "Funny. I feel kinda mune. Not dying but definitely mune."

Willow, to Giles – "Could it be because of the silver? Maybe it affects vampires more than normal lead."

Buffy – "No. I think it's because of that honking big gun. Look, can we pull these bullets out or something? They're kinda uncomfortable. Kinda hot too."

Giles, pulling out his first aid kit from his pack – "Oh, of course."

Willow – "But what about the hunter? What if he wakes up?"

Giles, chuckling – "I don't think he'll wake up any time soon. And when he does, he won't be in any condition to harm anyone."

Buffy – "Don't tell me. He'll wake up with a splitting head ache and a dry taste in his mouth."

Giles – "Why yes. How did you know?"

Buffy – "I've been there before."

Giles, looking Buffy over – "It seems you took a shot to the lung so maybe it's best if you refrain from talking."

Buffy sighed and closed her mouth with a pout.

Giles was about to rip open Buffy's shirt then turned to Willow.

Giles – "Perhaps it's better if you removed the bullets."

Willow – "Why me? I've never done this before."

Giles – "It's really easy. Vampire's don't bleed that much so I think the only problem will be locating the bullet. Here, you just put the forceps into the wound and pull the bullet out."

Giles put the long metal pincers in her hands.

Willow – "But I'm not good with blood. Or with the poking into wounds and pain causing. You do it."

Giles hemmed and turned his back on them.

Giles – "You'll need to remove her shirt first."

Willow, realizing the watcher's reluctance - "Oh."

Giles, still with his back turned – "I suggest you use the scissors."

Buffy – "But my shirt! This is my favorite black shirt."

Willow – "And it's already been ruined by the two bullet holes in it."

Buffy – "Oh alright. Snip away."

Buffy rested back as Willow scissored a line up Buffy's shirt and pulled it open to reveal Buffy's chest covered in nothing more than her bra and two gaping chest wounds. While Willow did this Giles kept busy by reloading a dart into his rifle.

Willow – "Now I'm going to, uh, put these forceps into-"

Buffy, interrupting her – "Just do it!"

Willow – "You might want to bite down on something."

Buffy, impatiently – "Just do it before I bite down on you!"

Willow, cringing – "Okay."

Willow placed the tip of the forceps against one of the wounds and Buffy tensed up for the pain to follow.

Then Willow gently slid it into her. After no more than a foot, the forceps tapped again something metallic and Buffy grunted. Willow slowly opened them and trapped the bullet in their grip. There was some resistance as she pulled the bullet out and she found that she had to really pull at it. Then it popped out unexpectantly and Buffy's let out a cry of relief.

Willow found herself staring at the deformed silver bullet.

Willow – "Well, that's one. Now for the next one."

Buffy looked at her with her tongue hanging out in exhaustion.

Buffy – "Just give me a few minutes here."

Giles, still with his back turned – "We might not have a few minutes. Any moment now, the werewolf could come back."

Buffy, sighing – "That won't be a problem. It's already here."

The werewolf sprung out of the bushes towards Willow, bowling over Giles as it went.

Before it pounced on Willow, Buffy pushed herself off the ground and tackled it. Her footing wasn't good and she was forced onto her back with the werewolf on top of her.

Willow ran over to Giles who was out cold. At first, she thought he hit his head on something but then realized he had somehow shot himself in the shoe with a tranquilizer dart.

Buffy rolled them both over so that she was on top. She couldn't hold him down with just her weight though and the werewolf got up onto his feet with Buffy hanging on with her legs around his waist. The werewolf tried to shake her off with no success and then ran forwards into a large boulder, hitting Buffy in the back.

Buffy growled out in pain and growled again when the werewolf slammed her down onto the ground. While she was still stunned, the werewolf bit deep into her shoulder and Buffy let out a whimper. Instead of pushing the wolf off, she bit him on his shoulder too as they both set up a death roll with the other.

They rolled around like that for a while and then they both let go slowly. The werewolf tilted its head way back and howled at the moon in victory while Buffy had turned into a submissive rag doll.

Then a dart appeared on Oz's arm and he slumped down on top of Buffy. Willow came over, her face covered in worry.

Willow – "Buffy. Are you okay?"

Buffy, groaning – "And it was just getting good."

Willow, confused – "Huh?"

Buffy, shaking her head clear – "Nothing."

Buffy strained and pushed Oz off her. Then Willow helped her to her feet which turned out to be a real chore with Buffy.

Willow – "Are you gonna to be okay?"

Buffy – "Yeah. I've just lost some blood is all."

Willow – "Should I get your thermos?"

Buffy – "Nah. Just get this bullet out of me before the wound seals up."

Willow – "Are you sure this is the time? What about them."

Buffy looked over at Cain and Giles.

Buffy – "They're not going anywhere."

Willow was conflicted but gave in to Buffy's request. She picked up the forceps and placed them against Buffy's second gun shot wound. With a grimace, Willow pushed them inside the wound and just like the time before, she found the bullet. When Willow pulled on the bullet, Buffy's hands wrapped around hers and stopped her.

Willow – "Buffy. We've got to get the bullet out now otherwise it'll seal over like you said."

But Buffy wasn't listening. Instead she was pulling the bullet back into her, even deeper than it started. Willow wasn't an expert on reading emotions on a vampire's face but it looked to her like she was enjoying it.

Willow – "Buffy. Let go."

But Buffy just growled hungrily back at her and forced Willow down onto the ground. Still with the forceps in her hand, Willow lifted her legs up and kicked Buffy away, pulling the bullet out as she did. Buffy fell back against a boulder and clutched at the hole in her chest in pain. As she did Buffy looked at Willow and growled like a wounded tiger.

Willow scrambled back away from Buffy, crying as she did.

Willow – "Buffy, you want to think about you're doing."

But Buffy was beyond hearing and pounced on Willow, knocking her back to the ground. With a single minded purpose, she held Willow's hair with one hand and pulled her head to one side to expose their neck. Buffy reared back with her eyes closed and her mouth open, ready to strike down. Then she falter and fell to the side, unconscious.

Willow let out a sigh of relief then pulled the handful of darts out of Buffy's side which she had just stabbed there.

With a degree of pain, she got up and cricked her neck a little. Then she looked around at the scene and groaned.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library, the next day.

Oz and Buffy were waiting with very uncomfortable, guilty looks.

Oz – "I'm sorry for biting you."

Buffy – "It's okay. I bit you back."

Oz rubbed his shoulder and winced.

Oz – "I wondered."

Buffy – "It wasn't all bad."

Oz, raising an eyebrow – "Really?"

Buffy – "I, uh, enjoyed it a little. In fact, I think I enjoyed it too much."

Oz didn't quite know how to react to that.

Buffy – "Oz?"

Oz – "Buffy, I'm not interested in a relationship with you."

Buffy – "No. I mean I get that. You're with Willow."

Oz – "Not anymore."

Buffy, frowning – "What? Because of what happened between us? Oz, I don't want to get between you two."

Oz – "It's not you. It's me. You think Willow will want anything to do with me now?"

Buffy – "I would. I mean I wouldn't but if I was Willow then I would. It would just take some adaptation on your part."

Oz – "Some adaptation? Buffy. I turn into a freaking killing machine at nights."

Buffy – "No, you don't. You haven't killed anyone yet."

Oz – "But Theresa-"

Buffy, stopping him – "Was killed by Angelus, not you. We checked it out. So far you haven't killed anyone unless you count some small animals."

Oz smiled a conflicted smile.

Oz – "That's great except for the small animals part."

Buffy – "I guess even in wolf form, there's still some part of you in control."

Oz – "I don't think so. I think it was just luck."

Buffy – "Maybe but Oz, this is just a small problem. We just have to lock you up at night sometimes."

Oz – "Yeah. I guess. But I attacked Willow. That's not something you just forget."

Buffy – "When Willow came and told us you were the werewolf I got the feeling that she was more afraid for you than afraid of you."

This made Oz turn inwards and contemplate what Buffy said.

Buffy – "I'm sure Willow will be fine with you being a werewolf. She'll just give you the no-biting rule and -"

Oz, looking up at Buffy and smiling – "A no-biting rule?"

Buffy – "Oh yeah. Biting is a big Sunnydale faux pas. My boyfriend bit me once and we all know how that turned out."

Willow – "A no-biting rule sounds good."

Oz and Buffy turned around and found Willow standing there with a smile.

Buffy, trying to sound upbeat and failing – "Hey. If it's not the last man standing. How was Giles?"

Willow – "Not coming in today. He's still feeling the effects of the tranquilizer. How about you two?"

Buffy – "I'm fine."

Oz – "Me too. Willow, I just want to say right now that I'm sorry for attacking you."

Buffy – "So am I. If there's anything I can do to make up for it, just tell me."

Willow, with a smile – "How about giving me and Oz some alone time?"

Buffy nodded and quietly left the room, leaving the other two alone in the library. As Buffy left, Willow's smile disappeared.

Willow walked up to Oz, solemnly and Oz stood in place, ready for rejection.

Willow – "Do you.. do you want me as your girlfriend?"

Oz, surprised at the question – "Yes. Oh god, yes."

Willow held up her hand, silencing him.

Willow – "Then we need to talk. A relationship is built on talking."

Oz – "I sorry I didn't tell you I was the werewolf. I only just figured it out yesterday and I was so freaked and then I thought I killed Theresa and I-I just wanted to hide."

Willow – "I think I understand."

Oz – "So we're good?"

Willow – "Not quite. Umm, about Buffy. Are you sure you wouldn't rather be her boyfriend?"

Oz, laughing slightly – "Uh, no. I don't think so. She's great but I-I can't picture it."

Willow – "Then why does wolf-you keep trying to mate with her?"

Oz, turning embarrassed – "Uh, it's like this. Buffy, her outwards appearance is.. and she's got that evil undead thing.."

Willow – "What are you trying to say? She's hotter than me?"

Oz – "No, it's not that. There's something about her that my darker side is attracted to. But I'm not interested in her. Her personality is.. it doesn't do anything for me. You understand?"

Willow – "I think so. So you like me for my mind?"

Oz – "Yes but your body is great too. There's nothing wrong there."

Willow – "But I don't dig up naughty thoughts like Buffy does?"

Oz - "Truthfully? Not as much. You dig up nice, warm fluffy thoughts. You dig up thoughts that make me glad I'm your boyfriend."

Willow's cold demeanor melted and she rolled her eyes as she gave it up.

Willow – "Smooth talker."

Oz, grinning – "Thanks."

Willow took the opportunity to lean over and kiss Oz on the mouth.

Oz blinked and then smiled even more.

Willow moved to leave then stopped herself and turned back to him. She placed her arms on both sides of Oz's neck, effectively trapping him in place.

Willow – "You know how relationships are based on talking?"

Oz, a little uncertain now – "Yes?"

Willow – "I just realized that there was something I should have mentioned earlier. It's not that I don't like you, I really do. It's just.."

Then Willow crept closer and whispered in his ear.

Willow – "It's just, sometimes you dig up naughty thoughts in me. Like when I caught you with those shackles last night. Mmm, so naughty. You're okay with that, aren't you?"

Oz gulped and had to struggle to find his voice.

Oz – "Uh, yeah. I'm okay with that."

Willow leaned back off Oz with a wicked smile. Then she turned and walked out of the room, leaving him there to stare after her.

Oz – "What have I gotten myself into?"

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	7. 3a Be still my heart

Itwas another Tuesday night in Sunnydale while Xander and Buffy both sat on a pair of gravestones like they were seats, as if waiting for something. The truth was that it was a quiet night and they both decided to take a break and talk a bit.

Xander – "Okay. Umm. How about Heather? Not Heather in phys-ed but Heather in arts and crafts. A yes?"

Buffy, nodding – "She's a yes. I'd bite her."

Xander, cringing – "But she's got like.. that acne. Doesn't that put you off?"

Buffy, shrugging – "She doesn't have acne on her neck."

Xander – "Ahh. Giles. A no?"

Buffy – "It's funny. I can't figure out Giles. I'd say no for now. Maybe a yes if I got really hungry."

Xander – "Okay then. Umm, Harmony? Oh, she's a yes, isn't she?"

Buffy frowned while Xander chuckled evilly.

Buffy, reluctantly – "I guess so. It just doesn't seem right somehow. Does that make sense?"

Xander - "I guess it does. I know I'd feel bad about wanting to bite Harmony. She's so.. blonde. Hey, what about Oz? He's a yes, isn't he?"

Buffy – "He's a no."

Xander – "But I thought you liked him."

Buffy – "But not in that way."

Xander – "But you've already bitten him."

Buffy – "It didn't mean anything. It was purely physical."

Xander – "So if you were given the chance, you wouldn't bite him again?"

Buffy – "Nope. I think it's the whole werewolf thing. It puts me off. Even if I did bite him, I wouldn't swallow."

Xander, frowning – "Uh. Hang on. You don't want to feed on Oz because he's a werewolf?"

Buffy – "Yeah. So?"

Xander – "Maybe that's one way to find out who is supernatural and who isn't. Just figure out if you want to bite them. If you want to bite them then they're clean."

Buffy – "I don't know how accurate that would be but it does make some sense. Like, I read that vampires generally don't target people who are sick. That's why when they attack hospitals they do it for the blood packs rather than the patients. At first, I thought Oz just had a cold or the flu or something."

Xander – "You didn't want to bite him because you thought he was diseased? And you didn't think of telling Willow this?"

Buffy – "No. I didn't. For all I knew, it could've been his deodorant that was deterring me."

Xander – "So.. What about Snyder? Do you want to bite him?"

Buffy – "Oh god no. All those detentions have put a serious crimp in his biteability. I might want to kill him but bite him? No way."

Xander, smirking – "I can totally agree there. He just doesn't have the same appeal as Flutie did."

Buffy – "Yeah. You're so.. Hey!"

Then Buffy squinted at Xander with an incensed look.

Buffy – "You said you wouldn't make fun of this!"

Xander, laughing – "I'm sorry. It's just so funny."

Buffy put on a sulk and Xander sighed.

Xander – "Okay. I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about something else?"

Buffy – "Like what?"

Xander – "How about me and Cordelia? What a laugh that's gonna be. You know tomorrow is valentines, don't you? I got her this heart shaped locket for it."

Buffy, sighing wistfully – "Ahh yes. Valentines. The one day in all the year where you can be a stalker and get away with it."

Xander – "I haven't found that to be true."

Buffy and Xander stayed quiet for a while, in boring silence.

Xander – "Umm. About Willow. You'd really like to bite her?"

Buffy – "It's not that I want to bite anyone. It's just my instincts that are telling me to. You get that, don't you?"

Xander – "Yes. I get that. I'm just saying, Willow? We're talking about Willow here."

Buffy – "Yeah. So?"

Xander – "But she's Willow. I can get that you'd like to bite Cordelia. She's hot. She's bigger too! She's a decent sized snack. But Willow? She's so small and petite. Why so fixated on her? Is it because she's your friend or something?"

Buffy – "Well, no. Because she's my friend, that's why my instincts are telling me to turn her. I just want to bite her because she looks major yummy."

Xander, staring at Buffy – "Whoa. Wait. Not only do you want to bite her but turn her too?"

Buffy, defensively – "What? It's how vampires procreate. They turn their friends."

Xander – "But can you imagine Willow as a vampire?"

Buffy tilted her head back and tried to imagine. The image made her smile and laugh a little and then quickly stop altogether when it got a little scary.

Buffy – "Okay. That was a scary visual place… I kinda liked it."

Xander – "You've got a better imagination that I do. Hey, would you turn Cordelia? Because I think she'd make the vampire from hell. God, that'd be so scary I think I'd soil myself."

Buffy, snorting – "I doubt there would be much difference."

Xander – "I don't know. I think she'd be mean. Uh. Meaner."

Buffy, smiling at him – "You see, it's a very simple science. Turn-ability is based on how much I actually like someone. So say, Giles and my mom, they're turnable but not very biteable. Biteability is .. sort of like sexual appeal. It's not really but it's the closest thing I can think of. Some people are biteable and some just aren't. It just happens that Willow is just really biteable. She might as well put two golden arches on top of her head and change her last name to McDonalds."

Xander, frowning – "I don't get it. Is it because she's so innocent and child like? Or is it the red hair? I remember you saying something about that before."

Buffy, considering this – "Bright colours definitely catch my eye now. Particularly red. Although I don't find children that biteable. When I look at Willow, she just looks so, what's the word? Ripe! That's it. She looks ripe. Just so wholesome, you know?"

Xander shook his head.

Buffy – "Maybe I'm explaining it wrong."

Xander – "So it's a teenager thing? You find teenagers biteable?"

Buffy – "That could be it."

Xander – "Then what about someone older? Like a teacher? Like how about Jenny?"

Buffy – "Jenny's really biteable. Not just really biteable but on like my top ten wanna-bite list."

Xander – "You have a list?"

Buffy looked a little guilty.

Buffy – "I, uh.. I have a lot of time to think on patrols."

Xander – "Okay. I'll buy that. So who else is on this list?"

Buffy – "Well, there's Willow. Obviously. She's either in first or second place. I can't figure out if I'd prefer to bite her or bite Britney Spears more."

Xander, laughing out loud – "Britney Spears!"

Buffy, ashamed – "I know. It's bad. But I just had this dream last week where she was prancing around on stage in lingerie. I just jumped out of the crowd and tackled her to the ground and tore her throat out. Oh god, it was so …"

Buffy stopped talking and bit down on her fist as she tried to block out the weird, unwanted emotions. Then her vampire face came on and she yelped.

Buffy – "Ahh! I fricken bit my hand!"

Xander – "Are you okay?"

Buffy, licking her hand – "Yes. I'm okay. I wish people would stop asking me that. I just need a drink is all."

Buffy took out her thermos from her backpack and sloshed it around a little to tell how much was in it.

Xander – "So Willow is on par with Britney Spears, huh? You should tell Willow this. She'd love it."

Buffy rolled her yellow vampires eyes as she tilted back the thermos and drank the warm blood inside.

Xander always felt uncomfortable when Buffy was feeding herself. Maybe it was because of the way her chest heaved up and down like she was breathing. That didn't make a lot of sense to him. But maybe it was those little happy sounds Buffy made when she was drinking, as if she really enjoyed it.

Although this time, he was definitely more uncomfortable than normal. It was because this time she was looking him the eyes as she was drinking. He gulped and her eyes twinkled as his Adams apple bobbed up and down. It was a hungry and decidedly devious look she was giving him and it was making his body react in ways he wasn't entirely comfortable with.

After she put the thermos down, she licked her lips in slow motion. Then she bared her razor sharp fangs and slowly trailed her tongue up and down them as she closed her eyes to enjoy the aftertaste. Now Xander knew he was insane because that had to be one of the sexiest things he had ever seen.

Xander – "And Buffy. What big fangs you have."

Indeed, her fangs appeared bigger than the average vampire's. Especially now that Buffy had gotten off her gravestone and started walking towards him.

Buffy, still with her game-face on – "And Xander. You're on my list too. But you knew that already, didn't you?"

Xander got up off his gravestone and started walking backwards.

Xander – "Uh, Buffy. Are you okay?"

Buffy, snarling hungrily – "Never better."

Xander pulled out his stake but Buffy grabbed his stake hand before he could do anything with it.

Buffy, holding Xander in place – "Mmm. Got a little woodie for me? Huh? Want me to show you how to use it?"

Xander – "Buffy. This isn't you. You've got to fight it."

Buffy – "Why? When I'd rather fight him instead?"

Then Buffy spun Xander around and the stake in his hand hit the vampire behind him. The vampire dusted with a surprised look on its face and Xander stood there with a similar one.

Buffy chuckled, still holding onto Xander.

Buffy – "Happy Valentines, Xander. I got you a pile of dust. Hope you like it."

O-O-O-O

Scene – A Sunnydale high-school corridor. The next morning.

Students were bustling around during the first break of the day. Xander and Willow were walking down the corridor with Xander whispering something urgently to Willow.

Xander – "I'm serious. She's a big bad just waiting to happen."

Willow – "You're overreacting."

Xander – "And you're under reacting. She tried to drain you."

Willow – "As long as she gets enough red stuff, she's fine."

Xander – "Then why does she keep trying to freak me out? I say she's evil."

Willow – "She only does it because you're cute when you're scared."

Xander, frowning – "Really?"

Willow – "That's what she told me anyway."

Buffy suddenly appeared in front of them with a wicked smile and the two other scoobies gasped.

Xander - "Do you have to do that every time? Someone should put a bell on you."

Buffy, still smiling - "Meow. Hey, you don't mind if I have to take Willow off your hands for a while. You know. Girl talk."

Willow, to Xander – "I-uh-I'll see you at the library. Good luck with Cordelia."

Xander – "Thanks. And good luck with Buffy."

Buffy snorted and Willow turned red.

Xander – "There are so many things wrong with that I don't know where to start. Sorry. I'll just go."

Xander left and Willow frowned.

Willow – "I can't believe I just wished him luck with Cordelia."

Buffy – "He does need it."

Willow – "That's true. So what's, um, up?"

Buffy looked into an empty class room and entered it. Willow followed her as Buffy looked around to make sure it was empty.

Willow – "I take it you want to talk about some vampire problem?"

Buffy – "Uh yeah. It's actually the whole vampire thing. Like the whole thing. It's not working out."

Willow – "Uh. Well, um, Buffy. You went over this with Giles. We can't just turn you back."

Buffy – "I know. I just need something to make it stop."

Willow – "Make what stop?"

Buffy growled at Willow and her game face turned on.

Buffy – "This! You don't know what it's like. I'm hungry all the time! And I want to sleep with practically everyone all the time. That includes the vampires I'm staking every night. I just.. I just.. I need it to stop!"

Buffy drooped down in a chair with a defeated look and her game face turned off.

Willow – "But I thought drinking helped."

Buffy – "It does a little. But I can't just drink all day long. Blood's expensive. Drinking helps take the edge off but there's just so much edge."

Willow – "Umm. Okay. What do you want me to do about it?"

Buffy – "You, you're smart. You know stuff. Like maybe there's a drug or something that could kill my appetite? And I'm not just talking about craving blood here."

Willow – "Well, there's always chemical castration. Although, I don't know how that would affect a girl. Or vampires for that matter. Umm. I think I might be able to find something to help but.. it might slow your reflexes."

Buffy – "Willow, my reflexes can go to hell for all I care. I can't… uh. Why do you smell so nice all of a sudden?"

Willow, frowning – "Huh?"

Buffy, sniffing curiously in Willow's direction – "You. You smell.. really good."

Buffy's gameface turned back on and Willow stumbled out of her chair, away from Buffy.

Buffy, growling – "Dammit. This is just like before with Cordelia. I don't know why but last Tuesday she was smelling REALLY yummy in phys-ed. It's like, all of a sudden particular people just make me really hungry and I don't even know why."

Willow frowned as she thought about it. Then she gasped.

Willow – "Oh! I know what it is."

Buffy – "What is it?"

Willow – "It's um.."

Then Willow turned beet red.

Buffy – "What?"

Willow – "I'm on my period."

Buffy – "Oh. Ohhh! This keeps getting worse and worse doesn't it?"

Willow – "Yeah."

Buffy – "But hey, at least I don't get periods anymore."

Willow – "You don't?"

Buffy – "Nope. Gone a whole month and no pains at all. I don't think vampires get them at all. Oh. And M&Ms don't melt in my hands anymore."

Willow – "Well, that's a silver lining for you. So um.. are you sure you want to try drugs to solve this? It might have some bad side effects."

Buffy – "They can't be any worse than what I'm going through now. Half the time everything feels like it's made out of cotton wool. The other half it's like I'm PCP. When I look at you now, I hardly see Willow at all. Vampires, they see things differently. It's almost like I'm wearing x-ray specs."

Willow gasped and tried to cover herself with her hands.

Buffy – "No. Not like that. I can't see through your clothes. I can see through your skin. I can literally see the blood flowing through your veins. Particularly your skin for some reason. It's so clean and soft and …"

Buffy shook a daydream out of her head and forced her game face back off.

Buffy – "There I go again. Willow. Can you help me? Please. I'm begging."

Willow – "I'll help you. We will find something to help with this. But I will need to talk to Giles about this."

Buffy was about to say something but instead turned away and sighed.

Buffy – "Fine."

Willow – "He'll understand."

Buffy – "Okay. Just tell him to be quiet about it. Please."

Willow – "We're talking about Giles here. He'll be quiet about it."

Buffy considered this.

Buffy – "Yeah. You're right."

The bell rang and both the girls looked up.

Buffy – "Back to the grinder again."

Willow frowned.

Willow – "You call mathematics the grinder?"

Now Buffy frowned.

Buffy – "We've got maths? Funny. I thought we had bio. And no, I don't call maths the grinder. Bio is the grinder. Maths is the hole which hath no bottom."

Willow – "Oh-kay. So what's history?"

Buffy – "The galley of lost souls."

Willow, as they walked towards the exit – "What about free study periods?"

Buffy - "Oh, that's an easy one. It's music appreciation."

Willow gave Buffy a weird look.

Buffy, explaining – "I brought a walkman."

Willow – "Ah."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Cut to later in the school day.

A number of the younger Scoobies were in the middle of an exam in the galley of lost souls. The bell rang and a few students scrambled to tick a few remaining multiple choice questions at random. Xander was one of these students. The lady teacher at the head of the class noticed the bell and put down the book she was reading.

Teacher – "Alright. Pencils down and papers on my desk. Anyone trying to leave without giving me that paper is looking at a failing grade."

Buffy obviously hadn't heard that because she was still working on the paper. Willow leant over from her desk and nudged her.

Buffy looked up and noticed everyone was leaving. Then she pulled the earplugs out of her ears and turned off the tape she was listening to.

Willow to Buffy – "You were listening to music while you were doing your paper?"

Buffy shook her head and smiled as she got up from her desk.

Buffy – "Here. Take a listen."

Buffy put one of the earplugs up to Willow's ear to listen. Willow listened for a few seconds and then she frowned.

Willow – "I don't get it. Is that a heart beat?"

Buffy, taking the earplug back – "Yup. It's a mix tape of sounds inside the womb. Giles thought it might help me get in touch with my inner baby or something. It might actually be working. I find it very mellowing."

Buffy and Willow handed the teacher their papers and headed out of the class, into the hallway and onto their first lunch break of the day.

Willow – "So listening to a heartbeat gives vam-uh.."

Willow stopped herself from saying the V word and coughed a little before trying again.

Willow – "So listening to a heartbeat gives you a calming effect? I thought people with your, uh, condition were uh, kind of .. I thought the whole heart beat thing made you.. you know, grrr argh."

Buffy – "It depends. When I hear someone's heartbeat going fast, it's like mine is going fast too. Not that I actually have one. But when it's slow and gentle, I dunno, it's just nice. I slept with this on last night. I had some, heh, I had some really strange dreams."

Willow – "Really? Like what?"

Buffy, chuckling – "You really don't want to know."

Then Xander almost stumbled into Willow with a slightly wild look in his eyes.

Xander – "Hey. Did you guys see that?"

Willow – "See what?"

Xander – "Amy. She just did some mojo on Miss Beakman. At least, I think it was mojo."

Buffy – "You mean like witchcraft?"

Xander – "That word works too. The teacher just thanked her for giving her an imaginary piece of paper."

Willow – "Well, her mother was a witch so it's not totally – Whoa. Wait. She used witchcraft to cheat on a test?"

Xander – "Oh wow. She did, didn't she? I didn't know you could do that. How come no one told me you could do that?"

Giles came out of a classroom and headed the three teenagers off.

Xander, cheerfully – "Hey Giles. You'd never guess what just happened. I now know what I want to be when I grow up."

Giles didn't expect this and was taken back a little.

Giles – "Really? Umm, well. Perhaps this isn't the time. I was hoping to talk to Buffy."

Xander, ignoring Giles attempts to corral Buffy into the library – "I want to be Amy."

Giles – "Pardon me?"

Xander – "Well. Not Amy as such. Just like her."

Giles – "Excuse me? I'm not following you."

Willow – "He thinks he caught her cheating on a test."

Giles faltered a little but got his composure back.

Giles – "Well. Good luck with that, young man. Now, Buffy. This way please. There's something we need to talk about."

Buffy pouted as Giles headed her into the empty library. Once inside, Buffy pouted some more and sat down on a chair.

Buffy – "Did I do something bad?"

Giles – "No. It's nothing like that. It's Angelus."

Buffy – "He did something bad?"

Giles – "Not yet. But there is a good chance he will tonight."

Buffy – "Why tonight?"

Giles – "Because it's Valentines. I've been reading up on his history and he's particularly susceptible to violent acts against those he is, umm, has targeted. You see, Angelus' hunting patterns aren't the same as the usual vampire's. Usual vampires act and hunt in a similar pattern to animals while Angelus hunts in fashion more similar to a .."

Buffy – "To a what?"

Giles – "I believe the closest comparison would be a hormone-driven teenager. It would seem he acts or even believes that his killings are some sort of romance."

Buffy – "Ahh. So you think he'll be targeting me? I don't know Giles. I just don't think we have that spark anymore."

Giles – "I realize you may feel that way but no doubt Angelus feels different about our arrangement."

Buffy – "Yeah. You're right. Besides, I'm probably the only girl in Sunnydale he even knows."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Vampire's warehouse.

Spike and Drusilla were at a table. Spike handed over a large long box to Drusilla.

Spike – "Happy Valentines, luv. Hope you like it."

Drusilla opened up the box like a child on Christmas morning. Once she saw what was inside, she gasped and her breath truly stopped. Slowly and gently, she took one of the garter belts out and looked at it as if she'd never seen one before.

Angelus, coming out of the shadows with a silver platter – "Spike. Really. You know Dru doesn't wear underwear."

He placed the platter down on the table and Drusilla saw the fresh heart on it and totally forgot about Spike's gift.

Angel – "Happy Valentines, Dru."

Drusilla looked at the heart like it was the most beautiful thing in the word. In fact, Spike could've sworn that she was crying a little.

Drusilla – "Oh Angel. It's still warm."

Angel looked over at Spike who was doing his best to sulk in his wheelchair.

Angel – "Just the way you like them. Oh, what do we have here?"

Angel looked through the box of lingerie Spike had gotten Drusilla.

Spike – "Hey. You're getting blood on it!"

Angel looked up at Spike blankly for a moment. Then he snorted into laughter.

Angel – "So? We're vampires. Blood doesn't worry us. Hey, Dru. Did he have another accident in his wheelie-chair? Did he hit his head again?"

Drusilla shook her head then went back to adoring the heart. If she looked hard enough, she thought she could see it beating.

Angel, still picking at the lingerie – "Still. I think Spike's little gift will be fun to tear off. Don't you think, baby?"

Drusilla giggled and Spike clenched his jaw to stop himself growling openly.

Spike – "Hey. You'd do good to forget about my gift and start thinking about that Slayer you've been tramping around with."

Angel – "Ahh yes. Dear Buffy. I still haven't decided on what to give her. I have the same problem every year. Most people can't think of gifts while I can't decide which gifts to give. It's a pity I can't just give her them all."

Spike – "How about just two gifts? Cut both her arms off and then send them back to her. I know it's cheap but I like it. I think it will make the right impression on her too."

Angel considered this then chuckled.

Angel – "Nope. I know what will get her attention."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Summers household, lounge room.

Buffy and Joyce were on the couch, eating pop corn and watching a movie.

There was a knock at the door and they both looked over at the sound.

Buffy – "Here. Hold onto this."

Buffy handed the popcorn to Joyce and got up to answer the door. She opened the door but found no one outside. A little puzzled she looked back at the couch and found her mother missing from it.

Buffy, calling out – "Mom?"

When she got no answer, she started panicking and moved towards the kitchen.

Buffy – "Mom?"

She spun around, ready to attack when she heard a sound behind her and yelped when she found it was her mother instead of a monster.

Buffy – "Geez, mom."

Joyce – "It's just me."

Buffy – "Gimme a heart attack why don'tcha? How did you sneak up on me like that?"

Joyce, ignoring her daughters confusion – "I was just checking the back door and I found these left for you."

Buffy looked down out the long black box in Joyce's hands. It had a ribbon on it and a small white card with "Buffy" written on it with little hearts and a smiley face.

Buffy took it from her mother's hands carefully. It didn't weigh much for a bomb so Buffy presumed it was safe enough to open. She untied the ribbon and opened it up to find a bunch of fine red roses.

Joyce - "Wow. You got roses. Who do you think they're from?"

Buffy tried to act stupid and shrugged.

Buffy – "Got me."

O-O-O-O

Spike – "Let me get this straight. You got her roses?"

Angelus – "It's traditional."

Spike, sighing – "You're pathetic."

O-O-O-O

Scene – High school, the next day.

Xander was walking along the halls, looking like the worlds doormat.

Some guy Xander didn't know came up to him and slapped him on the back, almost as if congratulating him.

Other guy – "Dude. Way to get dumped."

Xander avoided eye contact and kept on slugging, hoping it would all blow over by lunch time. How did everyone seem to know he got dumped? Oh sure, it was done in a public place in front of everyone but why did everyone suddenly take an interest in his affairs. He'd done stupid things in public before without any mention or even notice for it. What happened wasn't even a cry for attention.

Without looking where he was going, he turned a corner and ran head first into someone else. They both fell over onto their ass and fumbled back up.

Buffy, as she got back up – "Xander? Sorry about that."

Xander – "What the? Buffy? I thought you had super senses. You should've heard me coming a mile away."

Buffy – "Wasn't using them. Sorry."

Xander blinked at Buffy and frowned.

Xander – "Hey. Is something wrong?"

Buffy – "Angel sent me roses last night."

Xander raised an eyebrow.

Xander – "Okay. Weird."

Buffy – "I just was, I don't know, expecting a fight or something dramatic. Not roses. That's, you know, nice of him. It's not right."

Xander – "I'd take roses over what I got for my valentines."

Buffy, with wide eyes – "Angel sent YOU a valentines gift too?"

Xander – "No. Although, that would be ultra freaky, wouldn't it? Nope. Cordelia dumped me."

Buffy's mouth fell open.

Buffy – "On VALENTINES!"

Xander – "That was my reaction."

Buffy took Xander into a hug – "Oh my god. Xander. That's horrible."

Xander, a prisoner in Buffy's arms – "Yeah. It is. It's a good thing you didn't go to the bronze to see my public humiliation."

Buffy let Xander go, seeing as he wasn't taking to her hug very comfortably and frowned.

Buffy – "Umm. I know what will make you cheer up. How about after school, we egg Cordelia's car?"

Xander, unsure of himself – "Uhh. Yeah. Maybe."

Buffy – "Umm, I'm going to the library. Want to come with? Giles is single too. We could all be single together. It would be nice."

Xander, not really caring – "Sure. Sounds fun."

They turned towards the library and come face to face with Cordelia. Cordelia was flanked on both sides by the prettied up Cordettes.

Cordelia, coldly – "Hey Dweeb boy."

Buffy – "Cordelia, you stupid bitch! You can't just dump someone on Valentines! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Cordelia flinched only slightly, expecting an outburst from the little blonde but not one with those particular words. Buffy caused no lasting damage however and Cordelia quickly retorted.

Cordelia – "It turns out, Buffy, that you can only claim temporary insanity if it's actually only temporary. So, I ditched the dweeb before he got any ideas of permanence. Besides, it was funny. Yes. Funny ha-ha. I sure know I laughed."

Then Cordelia looked over to her girls.

Cordelia – "Girls? Don't we have somewhere we need to be?"

Apparently they did because they walked with their noses in the air while Buffy and Xander stared in shock at the overnight personality relapse that Cordelia had gone through.

Buffy – "Something's possessed her. That's what it is."

Xander, looking over at Buffy with skepticism – "I don't think that's what it is."

Buffy – "She's got to be killed. It's all there is too it."

Xander took Buffy by the shoulders and walked her towards the library.

Buffy – "Come on. It's not like the world would miss her. Just one bite and it would all be over. I could even make it look like an accident."

Xander – "It's funny. I was thinking the same thing last night."

As they walked into the Library, Giles turned around with a look of fatherly concern.

Giles – "Oh Xander. You poor boy."

Xander, groaning – "How the heck did you find out?"

Giles – "It's the talk of the town. I heard all about it on the car radio on the drive in."

Xander – "It's on the radio? But .. but.. This is too much. I'm leaving."

With that, Xander turned around and left the library.

Giles – "I guess one of us should go after him. I'm just not sure which one."

Buffy – "No. I think he needs some alone time now. But we should check on him later just in case he needs some suicide time."

Giles – "Yes. I suppose you're right."

Buffy – "Umm. Angel sent me roses."

Giles raised an eyebrow.

Giles – "Roses?"

Buffy – "Yeah. I know. What a fiend."

Giles – "Are you sure it was him?"

Buffy – "Who else would it be from?"

Giles – "Buffy, you do realize that last night was Valentines, don't you?"

Buffy – "Yeah? So?.. Oh! Oh, you don't think those were an actual valentines gift, do you?"

Giles – "It is an outside possibility."

Buffy pondered this and then frowned.

Buffy – "They weren't from you, were they?"

Giles, quickly – "No. They weren't from me."

Buffy – "Hmm. Well.. Nah. They're from Angel. I caught a whiff of that hair gel he uses off them. Too bad. It would have been nice to have a secret admirer."

Giles – "This is troubling. Angelus, this isn't in his character. I wonder. He might actually be trying to woo you."

Buffy, snorting – "Ever heard of an uphill battle?"

Giles – "I'm being serious here. Angel loved you and although I don't think Angelus is capable of such feelings, I do think he wants to possess you."

Buffy – "That's probably why he wanted to stake me."

Giles – "I fear he might confront you again before you're ready to stake him back. This time, he'll try to patch things up. He might offer to leave your friends alive or try to seduce you into feeding again –"

Buffy, interrupting Giles – "Hey! I said I wouldn't do that again. Didn't I?"

Giles – "Yes but you have to admit that your thirst is perhaps your greatest weakness. Angelus would know this more than anyone, being a vampire himself."

Buffy – "What's he going to do? Offer me fresh young bodies to drain? I'd kick his ass. See, I can even say fresh young bodies without even getting thirsty. I'm getting better at this. Blood-blood-blood and no effect whatsoever."

Giles raised an eyebrow at her.

Giles – "Willow told to me about your little talk this morning."

Buffy, a little embarrassed – "Umm. Uh. Yeah. About that-"

Giles – "Denial won't help here. I've called the watchers council and hopefully some sort of remedy or medicine will be found to help treat your, ahem, condition."

Buffy's glared at him.

Buffy – "You told the council? What happened to discretion is the better part of valor?"

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "I don't want half of Britain to know that I'm having a hard time keeping it in my pants. I just know that somehow it's going to leak out that I'm suddenly a nymphomaniac and by the look you're giving me, Willow didn't tell you about that part."

Giles shook his head slowly.

Buffy groaned and put her face in her hands.

Giles, as if chewing glass – "Do you want to talk about it?"

Buffy – "No. Not really."

Giles, letting out a sigh of relief – "Oh thank god."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	8. 3b Stupid cupid

O-O-O-O

Outside the library, Xander was walking down the halls with a purpose.

He passed some students who laughed and giggled his way. He ignored them. He found who he wanted to find and quickly pushed her into an empty classroom before she had a chance to realize what he was doing.

Amy, flustered with surprise – "Xander! What the hell?"

Xander looked around to make sure no one was listening and closed the door behind him.

Xander – "Hey. How was your valentines?"

Amy – "Uh. Okay, I guess. I might be wrong but I think Larry has a thing for me. Hey, you're a guy. Tell me what do you think?"

Xander – "I don't think you're reading him right. Just like you're not reading me right. I didn't pull you aside to talk about your crush on Larry."

Amy looked at him oddly.

Amy – "I'm not going to make out with you."

Xander – "And I definitely didn't bring you here for that."

Amy – "It's not that you're not cute. It's just I'm getting some hinky vibes here."

Xander – "That would be because I'm going to blackmail you."

Amy, laughing a little – "You're going to blackmail me? With what?"

Xander – "How about that witchcraft you used on Miss Beakman? Or how about the whole thing where you're a witch?"

Amy, glaring – "You saw that? That is.. so mean!"

Xander – "That's just a warm up. You and me, we're going to topple the queen of mean from her throne."

O-O-O-O

After the school bell.

Xander found Cordelia walking down one of the school's many halls. This time, she wasn't with her entourage. Cordelia spotted him too and did a quick one-eighty to avoid him. Xander ran up and jumped in front of her.

Cordelia, whispering fiercely – "Xander. What do you think you're doing? We can't be seen together. I'm sorry. That's just the way it is."

Xander – "Don't worry. I'm not here to kill you like you deserve. I'm just here for my necklace."

Cordelia, appalled – "But that was a gift."

Xander – "Yeah. That's a funny thing. I give you a beautiful piece of Americana and you dump me like I've never even heard of before. I don't think that was a fair trade. Long story short is I want it back."

Cordelia – "That is the lamest thing I've ever heard of."

Xander – "Yes. I think we've covered me and my lamality. Now cough it up."

Cordelia, angrily – "It's back in my locker."

Xander, smiling – "And I'll be attached to your hip until you get it. That's right. We'll even be showering together."

Seeing nothing else for it, Cordelia went to her locker and covered the combination lock from Xander as she unlocked it. She opened it up and moved up to the locker so it's door hid part of her from Xander. Using the door as cover, she reached under her shirt and pulled out the necklace, unclipped it and then turned back to Xander, almost throwing it at him.

Cordelia – "It's a good thing we broke up. Now I don't have to pretend I like it.'

Xander – "Oh, you so do like it."

Cordelia – "That's what I said about kissing you and look how that turned out."

Xander, walking away – "Yeah. You're right. I hated that too. I guess we're the dumbest people on the world for doing that."

Cordelia, yelling after him – "I couldn't agree more!"

Xander walked away with a little wicked smile when Buffy and Willow turned the corner and confronted him.

Buffy, looking over Xander's shoulder at Cordelia – "So is the egging still on?"

Xander – "Nah. I'm just not in the mood for a good egging."

Buffy – "How about a tar and feathering? Don't tell me you've never thought about it."

Xander shook his head again.

Willow – "W-We were thinking of going to the Bronze again tonight. Just me and Buffy and you."

Xander, sarcastically – "Yeah. Because the Bronze turned out so well last night."

Willow – "We just don't want you to be alone right now."

Buffy, bluntly – "Because you might decide to slit your wrists."

Xander, frowning – "Buffy."

Buffy, ignoring Xander's frown – "Actually, if you're anything tonight that involves razorblades and veins, I'm so there!"

Xander – "Buffy. I'm not going to kill myself over this."

Buffy – "Sorry. I've just been a little obsessive over death and bleeding recently."

Xander, obviously lying – "I know how that is."

Willow – "But we do want to be there for you. In a friendly way. The way friends do."

Xander – "I get it. I really do. And don't think that I don't appreciate the attention but I'm really looking forward to a quiet night of doing absolutely nothing. Today's been pretty stressful and it's not even over yet. I just want to go home and sleep."

Willow – "Are you sure? Because we don't have to Bronze it. We could do something else. Maybe something icecream and television related."

Buffy – "And the fun doesn't stop there. If there's anything else you want to do, we're there. Well, maybe not Willow but I will be."

Willow, frowning at Buffy – "Why wouldn't I be there?"

Buffy – "I don't know. What if he wants to go skydiving? You're afraid of heights and falling out of airplanes."

Xander – "Guys, thanks but no thanks. I seriously just want to go home and mope. How about we postpone possible death scenarios for next week?"

Buffy and Willow thought about this.

Willow – "If you're sure."

Xander, nodding – "Yes. I'm sure."

Buffy – "Well then, I hope you have a good night moping. I wish you all the best."

Xander – "Thanks. Bye Will. Bye Buff."

Xander turned around and started walking away while the two girls looked on with slight frowns.

Willow – "Do you think he'll be okay?"

Buffy – "Xander? Sure. You know I was joking about the whole razorblade thing, right?"

Willow – "Sure you were."

Xander kept walking and then turned a corner and sneaked into the science lab where Amy was waiting for him.

Amy – "Did you get it?"

Xander held up his hand and dangled the heart shaped necklace from it.

Xander – "Like stealing candy from a babe."

Amy – "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Xander – "As sure as sure can be."

Amy – "It's just I'm not sure what sort of effect a love spell would have if you're only doing it for revenge. What you're really looking for is a revenge spell. You might have heard of them. They call them curses. I've got books and stuff on them."

Xander – "No. I've made my mind up."

Amy – "Sure you don't just want to give her a bad case of zits? How about a full body fungal growth?"

Xander – "It's tempting. It really is. But this feels right. This feels good."

Amy, skeptically – "Right."

Xander – "Okay. Let's put it this way. Either Cordelia starts dating me again or you do."

Amy looked like she considered this.

Amy – "I'm kind of flattered but I don't think it would work with the whole blackmail thing."

Xander raised an eyebrow, waiting for her instruction.

Amy – "Fine. Let's do your stupid spell. Give me the necklace and take your shirt off. And stop giving me that look."

O-O-O-O

An hour or so later and Xander had his shirt off. He's sitting down inside a large circle painted on the floor with some red paint stripes on his chest and in front of him was a single candle. Amy is at one of science room tables, bringing some murk to boil in a beaker over a Bunsen burner.

She's holding the necklace over the foul brew and reading from a book.

Amy – "Diana. Goddess of love and of the hunt. I pray to thee. Let my cries bind the heart of Xander's beloved."

Then she dipped the necklace into the beaker and the mixture in it reacted with sparks and tiny puffs of flames.

Amy – "May she neither rest nor sleep until she submits to his will only."

The brew bubbled even more and now some sort of ethereal light swirled out of it, which Xander presumed was what magic was supposed to look like.

Amy – "Bring about this love and bless it. Blow out the candle now."

Xander blew out the candle as the power disappeared and the room became pitch black.

Nothing happened for a while.

Xander – "Uh. Did it work?"

Amy – "I think so."

Amy flicked the light switch on and Xander got up slowly as his legs were a little cramped.

Xander – "So that's it?"

Amy – "Yes. That's it."

Xander – "I was expecting, I don't know, Shazam! or something."

Amy ignored him as she cleaned up her supplies.

Seeing as it was all over, Xander picked up his shirt and put it on.

Xander, conversationally – "I was just wondering. When we were doing the spell, you were.."

Amy, raised an eyebrow – "Was I what?"

Xander – "Maybe it just looked like it but were you enjoying it? Does doing magic give people a buzz?"

Amy – "No. I didn't get a buzz off that spell. That requires a different type of spell. One you'll never do."

Xander, shrugging – "Just wondering. Hey, I just want to say, thanks. This means a lot to me."

Amy, as she left the room – "Whatever."

O-O-O-O

The next day, Xander wandered over to Cordelia's table at lunch and sat himself down. No one said anything but Cordelia looked annoyed.

Xander, cheerfully – "Morning ladies. How's the ficial going? Super?"

Cordelia, puzzled yet still glaring – "What do you think you're doing?"

Xander withered under her gaze for a few more seconds than he would have liked and then he vacated the seat and walked away.

Xander – "Sorry. My mistake."

Cordelia, as Xander left – "What was that about?"

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library.

Buffy stumbled into the library and hit the wall with her shoulder as she seemingly lost her balance.

Buffy, moaning – "Giles!"

Giles came out of his office and spotted Buffy in an obvious state of distress.

Giles – "Buffy. What's wrong? Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

Buffy, shaking her head slightly – "Can't take it anymore. It's too much."

He quickly came to her side and picked her up in his arms. Just as quickly, he took her into his office and laid her down on his desk. Then he opened the little mini-bar fridge he kept hidden in his office for blood.

He took a plastic bladder out and handed it to Buffy. Buffy just tossed it aside and shook her head.

Buffy, panting – "I don't need blood."

Giles – "Then what's wrong?"

From the desk, she looked at Giles a little strangely. Then she turned herself around on the desk and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him in and pulling herself up.

Buffy, huskily and full of need – "I need a man. Now!"

Giles' eye's shot wide open as Buffy ripped open his shirt and tried to tear his tie off. He tried pushing her away but she was just too strong for him.

Giles – "Buffy. Stop!"

Buffy silenced him by wrapping her mouth around his. This just made him struggle even more. Buffy rolled off the desk and onto the floor, taking the older man with her. Giles tried to the stop the descent, his fingernails scraping along his desk. But eventually Buffy pulled him down onto the floor behind the desk.

Buffy, from behind the desk – "I've wanted this for so long."

There was some more struggling on Giles' part until Buffy yelped and practically bounced off him with her game face on. He slowly got back up onto his feet, now holding a large wooden cross in front of him. His shirt and tie were shredded in parts and his belt and the top button of his pants were undone.

Giles – "Buffy. What in blazes is wrong with you?"

Buffy – "I-I don't know. It's like the entire world is on heat. I can't breathe without that smell getting in. I can't stop it."

It was so absurd, Giles almost laughed.

Giles – "Buffy. You don't need to breathe so just stop."

Buffy considered this for a few seconds and then closed her mouth and closed her nose with her hand. After a few seconds of looking very stupid, her game face turned off.

Buffy, still with her hand closed over her nose – "I think that's actually working."

Giles sighed with relief.

Giles – "I knew that this was a problem for you but I didn't realize it was that bad."

Buffy opened her mouth again to talk.

Buffy – "It's never been this bad before. Maybe it's some sort of whiplash from Valentines day."

Giles – "I don't follow."

Buffy – "Vampire's can smell arousal. You know about that, don't you?"

Giles – "Yes. I know of this."

Buffy – "Then take it from me. It's like someone fed the entire school some Spanish fly."

Giles – "And you're picking that up?"

Buffy dropped her hands and glared at him.

Buffy – "What! You thought I'd try to do that if I couldn't? And.. Hey, it's not that bad in here."

Buffy sniffed the air experimentally.

Buffy – "That's strange. I can smell tea, ink, tweed, rubber stamps and a decent amount of fear but no lust."

Giles – "I should hope not."

Buffy, with a small coy smile – "Well, maybe a little lust coming from you."

With that, Giles flustered and tried to pull his shirt together with little success.

Still with the smile, Buffy approached him and placed her hand on his chest.

Buffy – "Relax. I'm flattered. Really. Look, why don't we try that again and this time I promise to – Damnit! I REALLY need to get out of this school! I almost started on you again."

This time, Buffy broke free from Giles and turned around so she couldn't see him.

Giles – "Yes. I believe an evacuation would be a wise move. I'll get Miss Calendar to drive you far far away. Just stay right there."

Buffy, still with her back turned – "Trust me. I'm not going anywhere."

Giles took his jacket and put it back on. It didn't seem to be that damaged so he buttoned it closed to cover most of the damaged shirt he wore underneath. He cautiously walked out into the hallways but found them to be eerily quiet.

Seeing as the coast was clear, he walked along until he found the computer room just a few doors down. He opened the door and peeked inside to find Calendar looking over a students shoulder at his monitor. Seeing him the door way, she straightened up and frowned at his disarray.

Giles looked the class over and it seemed orderly enough. There was none of the wanton sex-crazed teenagers which Buffy alluded to.

Jenny, as she approached Giles – "What's wrong?"

Willow looked up to see Giles take Jenny out of the class and talk behind the door. Jenny yelped something which Willow didn't catch and then both of them came back into the classroom. This time Jenny looked almost as shaken as Giles did.

Jenny – "Class. I have some urgent business I need to take care of. I'm leaving you in the care of Mr. Giles and Willow."

Then Jenny left, leaving Giles alone behind the desk. Willow frowned as she got up and came alongside Giles to address the class.

Giles, to the class – "Continue what you were doing."

The class looked at him as an oddity for a few seconds then went back to doing what they were doing.

Willow, whispering – "What's wrong?"

Giles, whispering also – "It's Buffy. She-she.."

Giles couldn't bring himself to say it and Willow's eyes went wide.

Willow, out loud – "She's dead! But I just saw her last period."

Giles – "No. She's fine."

Seeing that the entire class was looking in their direction, Giles thought he might as well say something.

Giles, to the class – "No one has died. Continue with what you were doing. Please."

The class did, to which Giles was eternally grateful.

Willow, whispering again – "So what happened? She didn't kill anyone again, did she?"

Giles – "No. It's nothing like that. Buffy.. She forced herself on me."

Willow's face went blank.

Willow – "I didn't know she liked you like that."

Giles – "It was a surprise for me too."

There was a period of silence as Giles let the implications settle with Willow.

Willow – "So .. are you two going to date now? What about Jenny?"

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Willow – "You two, you know, did it. Doesn't that mean something?"

Giles, sighed – "Nothing happened Willow. I stopped her."

Willow, sighing with relief – "Geez. You could have told me that."

Giles – "Willow, I'd never take advantage of Buffy that way."

Willow – "Yes. You're right. You're very respectable and responsible. I'm sorry."

Giles – "That's okay."

Willow, frowning – "There is one thing I don't get. Why did you take over Jenny's class?"

Giles – "Apparently, Buffy is having a hard time keeping herself together around all these love-struck teenagers. I thought it best if she was driven out of school, perhaps out into the desert for a little cool-down. I asked Jenny because I didn't think it appropriate that I drive her, considering what just happened."

Willow, blankly – "So you got Jenny to drive her?"

Giles – "Yes. That's what I said. Why? What's so strange about that?"

Willow considered telling him but decided not to.

Willow – "Oh, it's nothing. Forget I said anything."

Giles frowned but turned back to the class. After a few seconds he looked over at Willow and frowned again. Obviously she was hiding something but he couldn't tell what. It didn't seem important enough for Willow to tell him so he guessed it wasn't that important.

Eventually Giles gave up thinking about it and turned his attention towards the lesson.

Giles, whispering to Willow – "So what are we learning today?"

Willow – "Spreadsheets."

Giles – "Spread sheets? What are those again?"

O-O-O-O

Scene – Inside Jenny Calendar's car.

Buffy had just gotten worse and worse since she had gotten into Jenny's car. They closed the windows and air ventilation but it didn't seem to help. Now she was visibly shaking and whimpering little puppy like whines.

Buffy – "Stop the car. I need to get out."

Jenny – "Buffy. We need to get you out of town."

Buffy, more vehemently – "Stop the car. Now!"

Jenny parked the car into an alleyway. Before she even got to look over to Buffy, Buffy was out of her seat and kissing her hungrily on the mouth and stifling her screams. Next Buffy unclipped their seatbelt and pulled Jenny between the two front seats and into the backseat.

Jenny – "Buffy. Stop!"

But Buffy wasn't listening as she straddled Jenny and held her down. Suddenly she stopped and Jenny stared at her, hoping some part of her was still in control.

Jenny – "This is ridiculous. Just get off me."

Then Buffy's vampire face morphed on and she bit down deep into the older woman. Jenny's eyes bugged out and she let out a silent scream which no one, not even Buffy, would ever hear.

O-O-O-O

Back at the computer class, Willow had a worried look on. Eventually though, she lost it and shook her head.

Willow – "Nah. Buffy would never do that."

Giles – "Hmm?"

Willow – "Nothing."

O-O-O-O

At lunch break, Xander walked into the library, looking for Buffy or Giles or Willow but found the place deserted.

Xander, calling out – "Giles?"

Getting no answer, he wandered in and checked the office. There wasn't any librarian sleeping at the desk. When he turned around he almost ran into Amy.

Xander – "Whoa. Sorry. Heh. I didn't see you there."

Amy – "It was my fault. I should have said something."

Xander, sighing – "Look, Amy, that spell we did, it didn't work. Cordelia was acting just like her usual snotty self."

Amy – "I guessed as much. I'm sorry. I'm still pretty new at this magic thing. And love spells are a lot harder than most people realize."

Xander, shrugging – "I wouldn't know."

Amy looked left and right and then took Xander into the office to talk of conspiracy.

Amy – "I-I thought about what you said."

Xander – "What did I say?"

Amy – "Y-you asked about magic which you could get a buzz off. Remember?"

Xander – "Vaguely."

Amy looked him in the eyes now and Xander wasn't sure how he felt about it. She was giving off some seriously hinky vibes.

Amy – "I know a spell we can do. It's got a lot of shazam to it. I just know you'll like it."

Xander backed off and Amy kept up with him. When he reared into the desk, Amy leant into him and placed her hand somewhere very private and very dear to Xander.

Xander's eyes went wide and looked down. Then he looked up at her. Then he looked down and then back up at her once more.

Xander – "Amy. I kind of need that. It's sort of attached to me."

Amy, licking her lips – "Don't worry. I'm only borrowing it."

Then she lowered her face down towards his groin and started fishing for his fly.

Xander's eyes shot open wide again and he lifted her up with both hands under her shoulders.

Xander – "Amy. Don't you think that you're moving a little, uh, fast?"

Amy – "Fast can be good."

Xander – "But I hardly even know you. Why the sudden interest in me?"

Amy – "You said that either Cordelia would be dating you or I would. I think I'll take the latter."

Xander – "I was joking when I said that. I didn't think you'd take it seriously."

Amy backed off and looked hurt.

Amy – "You-you don't want me?"

Xander – "It's not that. Amy, you're a very attractive girl and I'm sure you have many fine qualities, of which I know very few. It's just that I feel that the library is not the place for me to lose my virginity. Even if it was, I'd like to get to know you a little better."

Amy's eyes widened.

Amy – "You're a virgin?"

Xander – "You couldn't tell?"

Amy – "But you dated Cordelia. She never gave out? Not even once? Not even a goodbye bone before she dumped you on Valentines? My god, what a bitch. I'll tell you what. Since it's your first time, we'll make it special. We'll make it perfect. I'll pick you up at eight and then oh! I shouldn't tell you. I should keep it a surprise."

Xander, a little uncertain – "Um, okay."

Amy giggled and kissed Xander passionately to which Xander gave into, finding the experience new and exciting. She would have to stop soon or by the way she's rubbing into him, he would have his own little shazam in his pants.

Then the door to the office opened and Giles and Willow almost barged straight into them. They both stopped and stared at Xander with Amy still kissing him.

Eventually, Amy eased off and away from Xander.

Amy, sweetly – "I'll pick you at your place at eight. Don't forget."

Xander, shaking his head – "I don't think it would be possible for me to. I could get amnesia and not forget."

Amy excused herself as she slid out of the small office past Willow and Giles and Xander sat on the desk with the biggest smile he had worn all day.

Xander, once Amy was out of earshot – "Wow. It seems getting dumped on Valentines gets you major pity points."

Giles – "So it would seem."

Willow, with concern – "Xander. You shouldn't date Amy."

Xander – "Why not? There's nothing wrong with her as far as I can see."

Willow looked crept a little closer to Xander and almost whispered.

Willow – "Don't you know that she's like the biggest slut in Sunnydale?"

Xander, blinking in surprise – "Amy?"

Willow – "It's true. She's done everything and everyone. Even some of the teachers. Like Mr. Mackay."

Xander and Giles shivered at that repulsive image.

Giles – "Surely you're joking."

Xander – "I think she must be. I don't think it would be physically possible to have sex with someone four times your age."

Willow – "Obviously she found a way."

Xander chuckled and put his hands on Willow's shoulders.

Xander – "I see what you're doing. You're trying to protect me from more heartbreak."

Willow – "Yes. That's it exactly. You were only just dumped from the only girlfriend you've ever had. Then along comes rebound girl and I can't help thinking that she's got some ulterior motive, that she's just using you. Ooh! Maybe she wants to do something weird, like sacrifice you to some dark god for powers which are not the ken of man. You said that she was doing magic yesterday."

Xander – "Willow. It's a little bit of a stretch to think Amy's into the dark arts when all I've seen her do is cheat in American history. Hey, you don't think she would teach me that trick, do you?"

Giles – "I don't think that would be responsible. In fact, maybe someone should talk to her about that."

Xander – "I can do that. In fact, tonight."

Willow – "I really don't - Oh! Oh, I know what she's doing. She's going to use the same hypnosis spell on you for some evil purpose. I bet that when you wake up tomorrow, you'll think that you were on a date with Amy but she actually just hypnotized you and then used your body."

Xander, laughing – "Will, she doesn't need to hypnotize me to use my body. I'd go willingly."

Willow – "No. Not for that. I mean for something else. Like she could get you to rob a bank for her and you'd never know."

Giles – "I wouldn't jump to grand larceny just yet. For all we know Amy's intentions towards Xander are real."

Xander – "Yeah. That kiss seemed pretty real."

Giles – "But this does make me wonder if this is related to Buffy's current predicament."

Xander – "Huh? What's Buffy got to do with this?"

Willow, to Giles – "Buffy wouldn't want him to know."

Giles – "That may be but never the less, we should tell him."

Xander – "Tell me what? What's wrong with Buffy?"

Giles, very uncomfortably – "Buffy and I had a confrontation, of sorts. Just half an hour ago on that same desk, which is curious in itself. She seemed to be under the influence of some sort of aphrodisiac."

Xander's mouth fell open and he looked down at the desk he was still sitting on. Then he jumped off and gulped.

Xander – "You and her..?"

Giles – "No! Of course we didn't. It was obvious that Buffy wasn't herself. I had Ms. Calendar drive Buffy away from the area. It seemed to most logical idea."

Xander – "Okay. That's, um, scary. But what would that have to do with me?"

Giles – "I just noticed that Amy seemed very willing and –"

Willow – "No. That's normal. She's a slut. We went over this."

Giles blinked at Willow, a little surprised that she was talking like so that freely.

Giles – "That may be but it is possible that she is under the influence of some other force."

Xander, angrily – "Oh, I get it. You're saying the only way I'd get a date is if I drugged a girl."

Giles – "That's not what I'm implying. I'm just saying that it's possible that she's not in control of all her faculties. It's possible that Buffy had an extreme reaction to some sort of pheromone or magical agent that could be affecting the rest of girls at Sunnydale High."

Xander raised an eyebrow and looked at Willow.

Xander – "So tell us, Willow. Do you feel very pheromonal today? Would you like to tear the shirts off our manly bodies and make us your daddy?"

Willow turned a little red and choked a little.

Willow, avoiding eye contact – "No more than usual."

Xander, to Giles – "See. It's not related. Now, if you'll excuse me I think I might just spend lunch break with my very potential new girlfriend, Amy."

Then Xander left the office with a smile on his face and a spring in his step while Giles and Willow looked on with concern. In Willow's case, her eyes were also checking out his butt but there was clearly concern in her eyes too.

O-O-O-O

Xander walked around for a few minutes, looking for Amy but couldn't find her anywhere.

Eventually he sat down at an empty table outside to eat the sugar-coated excuse for a lunch he had packed himself. Across the field, he could see Cordelia and her Cordettes. He was mildly interested and just a little cheered by the fact that they were arguing about something.

All of a sudden, Cordelia got up and grumbled something about not needing to take that from them and paraded away like a peacock with its feathers ruffled.

It got even more interesting when Harmony got up and walked over to his table. That was when it became obvious to Xander that they were just arguing about him. That was strange in itself but was Cordelia defending him?

Instead of cutting straight to the quick, Harmony sat herself down and gave Xander a strangely warm, silly smile while the other Cordettes looked on in horror.

Harmony – "I guess you're pretty bummed with Cordelia leaving you. Aren't you?"

Xander, lying badly – "No. What would give you that idea?"

Harmony, twirling her hair with a finger nervously – "I don't know if you know this.. of course you don't know this. But it was my idea."

Xander – "Huh?"

Harmony – "It was my idea that Cordelia dumped you."

Xander glared at her.

Xander – "You?.. You put her up to it?"

Harmony, shrinking under his glare – "Yes. But it's not what you think. I-I-I did it for you. S-so we could be together."

Xander blinked.

Xander – "What are you talking about?"

Harmony – "Please. Just don't be mad. I just wanted .. I wanted you for myself."

Harmony reached over and placed her hand on Xander's. He looked at it then up at her face then he flinched back.

Xander, coldly – "As a practical joke, this is not funny."

Harmony, with a hurt look – "It's not meant to be. It's not a joke. Xander, I've never told you this but I've always loved you. From the first time I met you."

Xander stared at her for a while in some sort of wonder or amazement.

Xander – "I know this isn't the right time for it, what with you trying to humiliate me and all but Harmony, have you ever considered becoming an actor? I mean, like, a true thespian? That was amazing. If I didn't know better I would have believed it."

Harmony gave Xander an air-headed look back but didn't say anything. Then Xander heard a scream and a crash. When he turned around to look, he saw Willow sprinting along the colonnade towards the library.

When he got up and saw Amy fast on her heels after the red head. That was when he decided that maybe this was a case for the Xan-man.

Without giving Harmony another look, he ran after the two girls.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	9. 3c nice plan

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library.

Willow ran into the library breathless but not quite breathless enough not to yell for help.

Willow – "Giles! Help! It's Amy! She's gone insane! Get the weapons!"

Amy came up behind her, whispering something between pants and holding both her hands up towards the red head. Xander turned the corner in time to see a shimmering magic fly out of Amy's hands and envelope Willow. Then Willow disappeared and left her clothes behind in a pile.

It looked disturbingly familiar to the time Obi-won Kenobi disappeared into his cloak when confronting Darth Vader for the last time.

Amy, triumphantly – "Aha! I got her that time."

Oz came up behind Xander and looked over his shoulder into the library.

Oz – "What happening? I heard screaming. It sounded sort of familiar."

Xander looked at Oz for a second then back at Amy who was smiling sweetly at him for some out of place reason.

Xander – "Amy! You killed Willow!"

Amy rolled her eyes.

Amy – "I so did not. See! There she goes."

Amy pointed to the large rat scurrying away from the pile of clothes to hide behind a book case.

This just caused more shocked staring.

Xander – "Amy! You turned Willow into a rat! What the hell!"

Amy – "She was trying to get between us. She attacked me. I don't think you need that sort of person in your life. She's no good for you. The only person you need is me."

Oz, shocked but not showing it very well – "Willow was that rat?"

Xander – "We should, um, catch her."

Oz – "How did Amy turn Willow into a rat?"

Xander – "She's a witch."

Amy, nodding happily – "I'm a witch."

Oz – "And she's evil?"

Amy – "Hey. I'm not evil. Willow brought that on herself."

Xander walked forward cautiously towards Amy, trying to make himself as unthreatening as possible.

Xander – "Amy. You can turn Willow back from a rat, can't you?"

Amy thought about it.

Amy – "Theoretically."

Xander – "Then do it."

Amy – "No."

Xander – "Please?"

Amy – "No."

Xander thought about this while Oz crept into the library to search for Willow the rat.

Xander – "If you don't, I won't go out with you tonight."

Amy gasped.

Amy, angrily – "That's blackmail! Again! And I'm not giving into it this time."

Xander – "But Amy, we can't keep Willow as a rat."

Amy, frowning – "Why not?"

Xander – "Because.. Because it's wrong! And I won't date you if she's a rat. She's my best friend."

Amy smiled and wrapped her arms around Xander's neck.

Amy – "How about this for a plan. I'll turn her back after our date tonight."

Then she whispered something in Xander's ear.

Amy, whispered – "Or you can do me right now and I'll turn her back on the spot."

Oz turned away from the bookshelf for a second to look at Xander with Amy wrapped around him.

Oz – "I must have missed something."

Xander nodded.

Xander – "That you did. It seems Amy cast a love spell on herself which has made her go a little crazy. Actually, it might have affected other girls too but – Hey! Willow! There!"

Oz turned back in time to see Willow the rat scoot along to the doors out of the library. She made her way through just as they opened up.

Giles was the one who opened the door and was confused at what he found on the other side.

Oz – "Giles! You let Willow go."

Giles, not having even seen the rat – "Excuse me?"

Oz grunted something then got off his hands and knees to chase his girlfriend down. Outside in the hall way, they heard cries of "Rat!" and "Kill it!"

Before leaving the library, Oz turned back to Xander.

Oz, on his way out the door – "You handle Amy. I'll handle Willow."

Amy, smiling wickedly – "Mmm. Nice plan. I like it."

Xander pushed Amy away before she kissed him again and she looked at him with shock.

Xander – "Amy. You're under a spell. Can't you see that?"

Giles – "Ahh. So I was right."

Xander, to Giles – "Yes, you were right. Congratulations."

Amy, shaking her head – "I'm not under a spell. I mean, okay, that spell we did backfired but what we feel for each other, it's real. It's the most real thing two people can share."

Xander – "Normally, I would be all for the sharing but not right now. Giles, what do you know about reversing love spells?"

Giles squinted at Xander and Amy.

Giles – "You cast a love spell on Amy? Xander. I'm so disappointed in you. I thought you knew better."

Xander – "I didn't cast it on Amy! Amy cast it on Cordelia. But it didn't hit Cordelia, it hit Amy. But it definitely didn't hit Cordelia. She's still the same."

Amy, nodding – "She's still a bitch. But I'm serious. I'm not spelled. We're just in love."

Giles – "Xander. Do you have any idea how dangerous love spells are?"

Xander – "Not at first but I'm learning very quickly if that helps."

Giles – "People under the influence of love spells can be deadly. They lose all capacity for reason."

Xander – "That would explain why she turned Willow into a rat."

Amy, angrily – "She wanted to separate us. Can't you see that?"

Xander – "You turned her into a rat."

Giles, outraged – "She turned Willow into a rat?"

Xander – "I know! And she won't turn her back!"

Amy – "At least not until Xander gives himself to me. He's being shy. Oh, it's so cute but so frustrating. Xander, I love you and you love me so what more do you want? Oh! Let's get married. We'll just drive out Las Vegas and get married by one of those Elvis Presley impersonators. It'll be so great."

Giles calmed himself and stepped forward towards Amy.

Giles – "Amy. Just consider what you are saying for a second. Last week, did you want to marry Xander?"

Amy – "Umm. No. I guess not but back then he was just some guy I didn't really know."

Giles – "You don't suppose that this drastic change in your opinion of Xander could be the result of mind altering magics?"

Amy considered this and then frowned deeply.

Amy – "Oh my god. I really did cast a love spell on myself, just like Xander said."

Then Amy smiled at Xander.

Amy – "You're so smart. I never would have figured that out by myself."

Xander was taken aback.

Xander – "You don't seem very concerned."

Amy thought about it and shrugged.

Amy – "The way I see it, its better this way."

Xander – "How is it better this way?"

Amy – "Because I love you, silly."

Xander – "Amy, you can love me without the spell. I just don't want to take advantage of you like this."

Amy – "And what about what I want? What about my needs? I want you. No, I need you to take advantage me and I want you to want that to."

Xander looked at her and then at Giles who seemed perplexed.

Xander – "Giles. Can you reverse the spell?"

Giles – "I'm not sure. Not without knowing precisely what spell it was. There are a number of different love spells. Without knowing what spell it was, we could make matters worse."

Amy – "And I'm not going to tell you. Not in a thousand years. Not when I've got my Xander."

Amy hugged Xander who seemed torn between pushing her away and just going with it.

Xander – "What about Willow?"

Amy – "I told you, I'd change her back once I have you but not before. I just know she'll try to mess things up between us."

Giles, cleaning his glasses – "As much as I hate to say it, it seems she's giving you no choice Xander. To turn Willow back, you-you know what you have to do."

Amy – "And it's not like I'm repulsive, is it?"

Xander – "No. It's not that. I just don't think a relationship built on blackmail will last."

Amy – "It will! I'll make it work if I have to kill you to do it."

Xander laughed awkwardly.

Xander – "You don't really mean that, do you?"

Amy smiled as she pulled on his hair, pulling his head back.

Amy, with a deadly sounding tone that wasn't there earlier – "I absolutely mean it. I love you, Xander. I love you more than I love myself, more than anyone can love anything. You're going to be mine, forever. You're going to give yourself to me completely. Do you understand?"

Xander didn't answer at first so she tugged on his hair a little more.

Amy – "Do you understand?"

Xander – "Yes. I understand."

Amy softened a little then kissed him mercilessly on the mouth and finally let him go.

Amy, sweetly again – "You know what? Forget our date eight o'clock. We'll drive to my place straight from school. Until then, I'll be thinking of you."

Giles to Xander, as Amy walked her way out of the library – "I believe they have a contraceptive vendor in the senior toilets."

At hearing this, Amy turned around.

Amy, shouting – "No! No condoms!"

Xander – "W-why not?"

Amy, rolling her eyes – "Because I want to have your babies. Duh!"

Then she left the library and Xander slumped down into a chair.

O-O-O-O

It was almost the end of lunch break when Oz came back into the Library with a large cardboard filing box. Xander was still slumped down in the same chair and barely moved when Oz placed the box on the table next to him.

Xander – "What's in the box?"

Oz – "Willow."

Xander – "Oh. So you caught her?"

Oz – "If I hadn't, I would still be looking."

Xander – "Yeah. Obviously."

Oz sat down on the other side of the table and folded his arms. By the way he looked, he was angry. It wasn't a red-faced boisterous anger but a slow-burning understated anger which looked like it was going to stay there a long time.

Oz – "So how are things going with Amy?"

Xander – "Not well. She wants me to have sex with her. Otherwise she won't turn Willow back."

Oz considered this.

Oz – "Is that a problem for you?"

Xander – "No. Not a physical problem. It just feels wrong, doing that to Amy when she's under a spell."

Oz – "Then maybe you shouldn't have had her mess with love spells to begin with."

Xander – "But it wasn't.. how did you find out about that?"

Oz – "I met Giles in the hall."

Xander – "Ahh."

Oz – "So bite the bullet and do it."

Xander – "It's not that simple. You see, Amy is dead set against using protection. If I have sex with her to turn Willow back then I could get her pregnant. Then when we get the love spell off, she'll be pregnant with my child and want to kill me."

Oz considered Xander's predicament.

Oz – "I know something that might help you. Watch Willow's, okay? And don't open the box. She jumps."

Oz got up, walked over to the weapons cage, opened it up with a key and walked inside. He looked around for a few seconds then picked something small out. He left the cage, locking it once more and placed the small black object on the table in front of Xander.

It was a tazor. The same type kept in handbags across the country.

Oz, sounding very clinical – "If used in the right places then it will effectively sterilize you for a few weeks. For most men, there are two places. I'm sure you can figure out where."

Xander looked at the stun gun then back at Oz, trying to figure out if he was serious.

Xander – "Why do you hate me all of a sudden?"

Oz, coldly – "My girlfriend is a rat."

Xander looked at the tazor but couldn't make himself pick it up.

Oz – "Xander. You've got to do it. The effects won't be permanent. The excruciating pain will even go away after a few hours and then you'll be able to perform for Amy."

Xander – "I-I get that but do I have to do it this way? THIS way!"

Oz – "Do it for Willow."

Xander looked at the cardboard box on the table which he presumed held Willow.

Xander – "You're right. I've got to take one for the team."

With a grim resolve, Xander got out of his chair and took the tazor. He walked off to the toilets where he could have something that resembled privacy.

When he walked by Oz, Oz put his hand on Xander's shoulder.

Oz – "It's okay to cry."

With that truism said, Xander kept walking as if he was about to attend his own execution. The tazor in his hands felt heavy and full of dark promises.

Outside of the library, he was watching his feet as he walked but looked up when he heard a girl talk to him.

Some Girl that Xander didn't know – "Hey Xander."

That was when he noticed that EVERYONE was looking at him. Not just the girls but the guys too.

Xander, whispering for divine intervention – "Oh my god, I know I don't talk to you except for when I'm in trouble but I really need your help right now."

While the girls were looking at him with love in their eyes, the guys were looking at him like they wanted to pummel him into the concrete. Xander let out a sigh of relief, glad the spell obviously hadn't affected them as well.

Xander – "Thanks god guy. This was almost a complete nightmare."

But Xander's mind quickly grappled with the idea of the entire female population of the school in love with him at the same insane intensity that Amy had been at. What if it wasn't just the school? What if it was all of Sunnydale or all of America? or the entire world? Girls would kill themselves over their lack of Xandery goodness. Without a sane female population, half of the workforce would quit, no children would be born and society would break down. It's possible that this could cause the extinction of the human race.

Forget demons! The world would be destroyed by Xander Harris.

What if it was more than just this world? What if it was the entire universe? Should he be expecting night time visits from hot alien girls anytime soon?

That flight of fancy was shattered when he heard a familiar voice cry out

Cordelia – "Stop it! That's a Gucci!"

Xander headed off towards the sound of her voice and found Cordelia getting attacked by her former friends.

He pushed his way through but was having a hard time of it. So he decided on a different tactic.

Xander, in a commanding voice – "Separate!"

The girls separated on command and stared at him with crazy, servile eyes.

Cordelia blinked around at them in confusion and then at Xander who seemed to have super powers all of a sudden.

A random Cordette, sounding almost traumatized – "He talked to me."

Then Xander rushed forwards and picked Cordelia up in his arms and ran off with her. The girls hesitated for a few seconds but then they quickly followed him, calling out for him as they did.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Giles' house.

Giles was looking through his private collection of spell books when his cellphone rang.

He took it out of his jacket pocket and put it to his ear. On the other line was Xander, huffing into the phone.

Xander – "Giles! Thank god I reached you. The spell, it didn't just hit Amy."

Giles straightened up.

Giles – "It affected someone else? Xander, it's imperative that you keep them separate. In all likelihood, Amy will try to turn them into another rat if she finds out."

Xander – "That's going to be a bit hard. From what I can tell, the spell hit every girl in town."

Giles groaned.

Giles – "You! I can't believe this!"

Xander – "I know. I know. You're very disappointed. Can we talk about that later? I'm kind of running for my life here. Oh, and I brought Cordy with me. It was that or let her get mauled to death by the Cordettes. Maybe I chose wrongly."

Giles – "Find someplace to hide and lock yourself away. I think I've found a way to reverse the spell but I will need some time."

Xander – "Fine. You do that and I'll buy you a beer. You know, when I'm older and I can buy beers."

Giles cut Xander off by turning off his cellphone off and putting it back into his pocket.

Giles, under his breath – "Of all the stupid things."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Some Sunnydale street.

Xander put away his cellphone and sighed.

Xander – "Giles is on the case. He says we should hide somewhere."

Cordelia – "Hmm. Nice plan. I like it."

They kept walking along the mostly empty street until Cordelia looked at Xander sideways.

Xander – "What?"

Cordelia – "Did you cast a spell on me to get me to date you? I mean originally, when I first started dating you?"

Xander looked at her strangely.

Xander – "No! Why would you even ask a question like that?"

Cordelia – "It's a simple question."

Xander – "I didn't. Okay?"

Cordelia – "You've already done it once. Who's to know if you did it more than just this time?"

Xander – "Because I didn't. If I had, you wouldn't have dumped me."

Cordelia – "Yeah. You've got me there."

More silence until Cordelia broke it.

Cordelia – "It's pretty desperate, don't you think? Kinda lame. Having the entire town under your thrall like that."

Xander looked at Cordelia as if trying to figure something out.

Xander – "Oh my god. You're not under the spell, are you?"

Cordelia hesitated before answering.

Cordelia – "I'm.. No! Of course not!"

Xander groaned.

Xander – "Typical. I try to cast a love spell on you and it hits everyone in town EXCEPT you!"

Cordelia slapped him.

Cordelia, enraged – "You tried to cast a love spell on ME? That's sick! I suppose you only did it so you could use me, didn't you?"

Xander turned back at her, just as angry.

Xander – "No! I did it so I could dump you! Then you'd know how it felt when you dumped me."

Cordelia stood back and blinked at him.

Cordelia –"You.. you hate me that much?"

Xander – "What do you think? You broke my heart. You pulled it out of my chest and stepped on it with your overly priced heels. You even did it in public. And how it got on the radio, I don't know!"

Cordelia looked down, ashamed at herself.

Cordelia – "I'm sorry."

Xander turned away and kept walking

Xander – "Whatever."

Cordelia followed him, thinking pensively.

Cordelia, slowly – "What if I am under the control of the spell?"

Xander – "What do you mean? Hey, you said you weren't."

Cordelia – "I could have been lying."

Xander – "Yeah. You do that a lot."

Cordelia – "I know how you can get back at me."

Xander, squinting at her – "But why would you tell me?"

Cordelia gulped and moved towards Xander.

Cordelia – "Because I love you. I don't you to hurt like you're hurting right now."

Xander raised an eyebrow.

Xander – "Okay. I'm listening."

Cordelia – "Giles is going to turn off the spell soon, isn't he?"

Xander – "Yeah. And?"

Cordelia – "What if you.. Xander, right now, I'm yours. I'm giving myself to you. I've never been with a man before, not like that. When the spell gets lifted, it would be like you raped me. It would hurt so badly."

Xander considered this but shook his head.

Xander – "I can't."

Cordelia – "Why not?"

Xander – "I guess I just don't hate you that much. I hate you like this much but not that much."

Xander held out his hands as if showing the size of a medium sized fish to show what he meant. Then he kept walking and Cordelia followed behind him with a small smile on her face.

"XANDER! I'M HERE FOR YOU!"

Xander and Cordelia turned to see a crowd of girls running in their direction.

Xander – "Run!"

So they ran and passed right by a car with very steamy windows.

From the back seat, Buffy's confused vampire face looked out from the inside. When she saw Xander running away with Cordelia, something clicked into place in Buffy's mind and she let out a low rumbly growl.

Suddenly, everything started to make sense to Buffy.

O-O-O-O

Scene - Amy's place.

Amy was in the lounge room with a bunch of dresses and clothes spread out over the room. She was unable to decide on what to wear. She knew it didn't really matter since she was just going to take them off as soon as she got Xander home but she couldn't stop herself fussing.

What she was really looking for was something that said "I'm Xander's soon-to-be-wife." but she found her wardrobe lacking severely.

The door knocked and Amy turned towards it angrily.

Amy – "Go away!"

From the outside, a muffled voice came through.

Giles – "Amy? It's Giles. The librarian from school."

Amy didn't bother opening the door. Instead, she just shouted.

Amy – "I don't have time for you. I have to get ready for my date with Xander."

Giles – "But I really need to talk to you."

Amy – "No, you don't. Just go away and leave us in peace."

Giles – "It's.. It's about Xander."

Amy opened the door so fast that Giles was almost pulled inwards by the displacement of air.

Amy – "What about him? He isn't chickening out, is he?"

Giles – "I'm afraid to say that he won't be able to make his date."

Amy grabbed Giles by the lapels and pushed him against the side of the house.

Amy, outraged – "Why NOT?"

Giles, calmly – "Because you're not the only person affected by the love spell. Apparently, it has affected every girl in Sunnydale. It's either that or it's contagious. Right now, Xander is running for his life from mobs of the crazed, love-struck female population."

Amy looked at Giles sideways for a second then laughed.

Amy – "You almost had me there. You just want your precious Willow de-moused. Well, it's not going to happen."

Giles – "I'm not lying. Look."

Amy looked to where a mob of crazed women were stampeding down the street.

Amy – "Oh. That would explain a few things."

Giles – "Now will you reverse the spell?"

Amy looked down and didn't say anything.

Giles – "If you don't then Xander is going to get trampled to death. Do you really want that?"

Amy, upset and crying – "No! Of course not. How could you say such a thing?"

Giles mentally berated himself for being so cold.

Giles, sympathetically – "I'm sorry. I-I didn't take into account your condition. But we really need to reverse that spell now."

Amy nodded.

Amy – "You're right. I'll.. I'll just get my stuff. We need to go to the school. Some of my supplies are there."

Giles – "That's okay. I'll drive you."

Amy walked back into the house in a zombie-like state and stopped in the middle of the room.

Amy, turning around slightly to ask Giles something – "Do you.. do you think I'll still love him after the spell gets lifted?"

Giles, trying to avoid that subject – "Amy, we really need to get going."

Amy, sighing – "You're right. I'll just be a second."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Buffy's room.

Cordelia and Xander ran into the room, closed the door behind them and then barricaded the door with Buffy's chest of drawers.

Cordelia, out of breath – "Why did we think going to Buffy's place would be a good idea?"

Xander, also out of breath – "Don't blame me. I've been making bad decisions all day."

Cordelia – "So what do we do now?"

Xander – "We turn off the lights and hide in the closet. If anyone comes up here then they'll probably guess that we went out the window."

Xander pointed a thumb back to the window as Angelus dipped through it and grabbed him around the neck.

Angelus, pulling Xander through the window – "Nice plan. I like it."

Xander, with the vampire's hand around his neck – "You just have the worst timing."

Angel – "Nice to see you too. So where is Buffy and what are you doing in her room?"

Cordelia came to the window and looked out at them.

Xander, spotting her just standing there – "Cordy, run! Get out of here."

Angel, nodding slightly – "That's probably good advice."

Then Angel pushed Xander gently off the roof and jumped down after the boy. Angel landed effortlessly on his feet while Xander landed hard on his back.

Angel – "I was really looking for Buffy but I'm nothing if not flexible."

From the ground, Xander heaved up a leg and kicked Angel in the groin. It didn't seem to hurt him at all and Angel replied by smiling and stepping gently on Xander's windpipe.

Angel, amused at Xander struggling – "What do you think about joining the family? Now, I'll have you know that I'm very picky about who I turn. Normally, I wouldn't even think about you but any friend of Buffy is a friend of mine. So hows about it?"

Xander rasped out something unintelligible and Angel leant down as if to hear him better.

Angel, chuckling – "Excuse me? I didn't quite catch that."

Then someone grabbed Angelus from behind and threw him against a tree with obvious super strength.

Xander got up, gasping for breath and was about to thank them until he realized that it was Drusilla.

Drusilla, helping him up – "Don't fret, kitten. Mummy's here now and she's going to kiss it all better."

Angel, from the ground – "Dru! What are you doing?"

Drusilla – "Bad daddy. You should know he's my gift. He's got the heart I really wanted."

Angel stared in disgust and perhaps a little horror as Drusilla leant into Xander and kissed him. Seeing as how his life might depend on it, Xander reciprocated as best as he could but felt that maybe he was a little outclassed.

When she eased off, Xander found himself giggling. To him, it was obvious now that he had gone beyond some breaking point because despite his insanely dangerous situation, the look Angelus was giving him was the funniest thing in the world.

Xander, still giggling – "Wow. I mean WOW! Spike's a lucky man."

Drusilla, suddenly upset – "Hush! You're talking out of place."

Xander – "Umm. I'm sorry? Hey, you're fine with me not being a vampire, right?"

Drusilla pouted and shook her head as her game face turned on.

Xander, as Drusilla bent his neck sideways for easier access – "Can't we talk about this!"

Out of nowhere, a light flashed, an engine roared and someone shouted "Hey bitch!"

Xander was pushed aside by Drusilla and he heard something very solid hit her with a loud thud. When Xander looked up, he saw that Drusilla had been hit by the ass-end of an off-road motorcycle that had skidded sideways into her. Drusilla was on the ground and moaning in surprised pain. But what really stunned Xander was that the driver was still on the bike. He couldn't see who it was because they had a helmet on.

Driver, their voice muffled by the helmet – "If you want to live, come with me."

Xander took one look at Angel and at Drusilla then jumped on the back of the bike.

Driver – "Hold on."

They really didn't need to say that. He already had a death grip around their waist.

Angel got up to chase them and the driver gunned the accelerator, spraying a heaping helping of mud onto the vampire. After a few seconds too long, they let the tires grip properly and sped off down the street.

Angel looked down at the mess he was covered in and groaned.

Angel, spitting out mud – "Sometimes I wonder why I even bother."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later and Xander found himself driven by his mysterious savior to some log cabin in the hills behind Sunnydale's national park.

He got off the motorcycle with weak legs and it was only when the driver got off that he recognized them. He only knew one person that short and they didn't look like Jonathan. Also, Jonathan isn't in the habit of wearing skirts. Xander should have picked that up earlier.

Right now, skirts equaled bad.

Xander – "Buffy?"

Buffy took the helmet off and laughed at him.

Buffy – "You didn't know it was me? Who did you think it was?"

Xander backed away slightly.

Xander – "I um.. Hang on. You're not all crazy?"

Buffy, looking at him strangely – "Should I be?"

Xander – "Well, yeah! Everyone other girl in town is."

Buffy, nodding – "I figured that out already. I asked one of the girls walking the streets and all she'd talk about is how great you are. Now come on. We should get inside before you get spotted."

Xander looked at Buffy for second then decided that she seemed safe enough so he followed her into the log cabin.

Buffy – "Close the blinds. I'll get the fire."

Xander did as she said and closed the blinds while Buffy put some logs and some scrunched up paper in the fireplace and lit them.

Xander – "I don't get it. Why would you be immune to the spell?"

Buffy, shrugging – "Maybe it has something to do with me being the Slayer."

Xander, sitting down on the couch to rest – "Yeah. That's probably it."

Buffy got up and looked out between the blinds.

Buffy – "We should be safe enough here for a while. At least until morning."

Xander looked around the unfamiliar house and frowned.

Xander – "Talking of which, where are we?"

Buffy – "Don't worry. No one lives here. Someone invited a vampire in last week and got the whole family killed."

Xander – "And you think its okay that we barge in like we own the place?"

Buffy, sounding a little different for some reason – "Desperate times ask for desperate measures."

Xander noticed the change in her voice and looked over at Buffy who was now completely naked and giggling.

Buffy, with a smile – "Okay. Maybe I'm not immune."

Xander got up to run away but Buffy charged into him, tackling him to the ground. They rolled across the ground onto a large bear skin in front of the fireplace. Buffy squealed gleefully when Xander rolled her over so he was on top.

Xander – "Buffy. This isn't going to happen."

When Xander tried to get off Buffy, she pulled him back down.

Buffy – "Wait! Why not?"

Xander – "I'm not going to have sex with you when you're under the control of some spell. God, how often do I have to say that? I should wear a sign around my neck."

Buffy, sounding a little desperate – "But you like me. I know you do. You-you said as much."

Xander – "But not like this."

Buffy – "What is it? It's.. It's because I'm a vampire, isn't it?"

Xander – "If that's what you want to hear then yes! It's because you're a vampire. Now let go."

But Buffy didn't let go. Instead she rolled over on top of him and her game face morphed on.

Buffy, growling – "Too bad! You're mine now!"

Xander brought an elbow up into Buffy's neck but it just stalled her from biting down into him. Buffy kept pushing against towards his neck and despite all his struggling he was no match for her strength.

Xander – "Where's a tazor when you need one?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	10. 3d I dont want to know

O-O-O-O

Scene - School lab.

Amy and Giles had a beaker boiling over a Bunsen burner and full of a murky concoction. Puffs of foul smelling smoke plumed up from it.

Amy – "Diana, goddess of love, be gone. Hear no more thy sirens call."

Amy sprinkled some reagents into the beaker. A few sparks and even more smoke came out of it.

Giles held his face away from the beaker as he dropped Xander's heart necklace into it.

A cloud of thunderous golden energy appeared along the ceiling and the windows opened up, drawing in more golden light from outside.

Amy's head jerked up and more golden light flew out of her mouth and eyes. It flew up and collected with the now giant cloud of magic on the ceiling. The magic lights hung there for a few seconds and then spun down into the beaker, like water swirling down a plug hole. After that, it was gone.

The first thing Amy did afterwards was sigh with relief and sit down.

Giles – "Are you okay?"

Amy, obviously a little disorientated – "I feel so much better now. You know what that felt like? It actually felt a lot like throwing up, just out of my eyeballs instead of my mouth."

Giles – "Are you sure you're okay?"

Amy – "I'm great. Ahh! I turned Willow into a rat!"

O-O-O-O

Oz was in the library, tapping his finger on the table as he waited by the cardboard box with Willow in it.

Then the box exploded and a very naked Willow rolled off the table and into his arms.

Willow blinked a few times and looked erratically around the room. Then she noticed she was naked and froze.

Willow – "Oz? This is a little sudden."

O-O-O-O

Back at the log cabin, the fireplace was now burning brightly and both Xander and Buffy were naked, wrapped up only in the bear skin rug.

Buffy frowned in her sleep and opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was Xander's face. She gasped as she realized how she had been acting over the last day.

She had tried to rape Giles.

She had actually succeeded in raping Jenny to a certain degree. It turns out that girl on girl action works a lot better with two willing participants.

Then she saw Xander and all her lust filled cravings just seemed to make sense. She stole a motorbike, hit Drusilla with it, saved Xander then raped him good and hard.

Buffy cracked up with laughter.

Buffy – "Holy cow! This has been the best day of my entire life!"

To stop herself waking Xander, she laughed into one of the paws of the bearskin rug.

O-O-O-O

Scene – School, the next day.

Xander was walking the halls in the early hours before school had really begun. On his neck, he has a large white patch on the same place where Buffy bit him. Despite this, he seemed to be in decent physical condition. In fact, he was even smiling slightly.

A band of people walked past and ignored him entirely. This made him smile even more.

He was unpopular again. Not just a little, not just a lot but even more than he started with.

Willow called him a nerfherder and didn't want to talk to him.

Amy threatened to bite something off.

He guessed that Giles would still be mad at him for a few days for pulling the magic stunt.

The same could be said for Oz as Xander did get his girlfriend turned into a rat. With Oz, it was no longer personal. Oz just stayed mad at him because it was the principle of the thing. There had to be a period of unresolved resentment after a heinous act such as polymorphing someone's girlfriend. Oz explained this while Xander understood and accepted this.

For some strange reason this all felt right somehow. As if this was how the world was supposed to be.

Then he turned the corner and Harmony was standing there with a smile on her face. Xander blinked and looked behind him. Nope, that smile was directed at him.

Xander, hesitantly – "Uh, hey Harmony. Is there something I can do for you?"

Harmony looked left and right to make sure no one else was listening before she talked.

Harmony, still looking around for eavesdroppers – "I just wanted to thank you for yesterday."

Xander, backing away slightly - "Look. Yesterday was kinda crazy and what exactly are you thanking me for?"

Harmony – "About what you said about becoming a thespian. I talked to the drama teacher about it and he thinks I've got lots of raw talent. He's even taking time away from his hectic schedule to give me special lessons after school."

Xander – "Ah, that's great Harmony. I mean, really. I'm happy for you."

Harmony – "But don't you see? When everyone else looks at me, they just see a well-groomed pretty blonde with a great fashion sense. No one's ever seen anything but that in me before. Not even my parents. But you did. You saw something that no one else saw. I just wanted to thank you for that."

Xander, a little weirded out – "You're, uh, welcome."

Harmony, harshly – "But if you tell anyone I told you about this, I'll deny it and then I'll make your life a living hell. Got it?"

Xander, smiling – "Yeah. I got it."

Harmony raised an eyebrow at him.

Harmony, walking off – "Weirdo."

With a sigh of relief, Xander walked off towards the library to see if he could get Giles to yell at him some more.

Once he got inside, he didn't find Giles. Instead he found Buffy sitting down behind the counter and he hesitated. She looked down, a little embarrassed.

Xander, without much emotion behind it – "Hey."

Buffy, likewise – "Hey."

There was a long uncomfortable pause, which Buffy eventually broke.

Buffy – "I guess I won the scavenger hunt. I always was good at those."

Xander – "Huh?"

Buffy – "Scavenger hunt. It was the cover story someone made up."

Xander – "Oh. Right."

There was another long uncomfortable pause which neither of them wanted.

Xander – "This is stupid. What happened, it couldn't be stopped."

Buffy – "Yeah. Because that spell, it enhottenated you to epic proportions. You were like uber-sexy Xander."

Xander – "And you've got slayer strength and you bit me and made me feel all pliable. Actually, what was that?"

Buffy – "I asked Giles about it. He thinks it might be called a thrall or something. It's kind of like a supernatural version of a roofie."

Xander – "And all vampires can do this?"

Buffy, shrugging – "I think so. But it only works if the vampire doesn't swallow. For most vampires that is the whole reason they bite to begin with. Anyhow, I know how my night went. What about everyone else? No one got hurt, did they?"

Xander – "I think Ms. Calendar might have. Giles said something about her almost dying."

Buffy coughed a little for no apparent reason.

Buffy – "She'll be fine. She just needs to rest up."

Xander – "Oh. Well, besides her, I think the only person in any real danger was me."

Buffy – "I know I can't say this enough but I'm sorry for that."

Xander – "Oh no. It wasn't just you. It was all the girls. Besides, it really could have turned out so much worse."

This made Buffy smile a little, as if it was a joke.

Xander – "I'm serious. By now Drusilla could have turned me or I could've gotten Amy pregnant or had sex with a girl who already has a boyfriend or I could have gotten overpowered by one of the mobs. Any way I look at it this was probably the best outcome I could've hoped for."

Buffy, now frowning – "Oh yeah. You really know how to flatter a girl."

Xander – "Oh! I didn't mean it like that. Buffy, you were.. you are.. You know!"

Buffy, folding her arms and coming around from behind the counter – "No. I don't. Why don't you just tell me?"

Xander, holding two thumbs up – "You were great. Top notch. It's just that after you bit me, uh, I didn't remember much after that."

Buffy sighed and dropped her arms with disappointment.

Buffy – "Really?"

Xander – "Yeah."

Buffy put her hand on his shoulder in a show of sympathy.

Buffy – "Oh Xander. I'm sorry. If it helps, I really enjoyed it."

Xander perked up at that.

Xander – "Really?"

Buffy, with a playful smile – "Mmm-hmmm. I enjoyed you a lot."

Xander was suddenly shocked at how Buffy was acting and he knocked Buffy's hand off his shoulder.

Xander – "Oh no. The spell. It's not over!"

Buffy rolled her eyes.

Buffy – "It's not the spell. It's just me. What's so crazy about me wanting some more Xander-time? And this time, I promise there will be no biting."

Xander, backing up into the wall – "The Buffy I know would never be interested in me like that."

Buffy, slinking her way towards him – "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do. Xander, I've got different needs now. The only time I feel alive is when I've got something hot and tasty inside me."

Xander gulped and Buffy licked her lips as she slid up against him.

Cordelia, aghast – "Get your dirty mits off my boyfriend!"

Buffy stood back and joined Xander in giving Cordelia confused looks.

Xander and Buffy – "Huh?"

Cordelia, strutting into the room like she owned the world – "I changed my mind. I'm taking Xander back."

Xander – "What! Don't I get a say about this?"

Cordelia – "No! You don't. You didn't before. Why start now?"

Buffy shook her head, sensing something was wrong.

Buffy – "Maybe Xander's right. Maybe the spell is still working."

Cordelia shook her head.

Cordelia – "It's not. Besides, I was the only person who wasn't affected by it."

Xander – "But that's crazy. The spell was cast on you."

Cordelia, shrugging – "I don't know how these things work. I just know the spell didn't work on me."

Xander – "Then how would you explain wanting me as your boyfriend now when you just dumped me two days ago?"

Cordelia – "It was a moment of weakness, okay? Harmony and my other friends didn't want me to hang out with you. They thought you'd bring me down. Maybe you are. But then when they attacked me, you came and saved me. Then I acted like I was one of the brain dead zombies to find out how you'd react and that's when I knew that you really cared for me. You didn't just take advantage of me like you could have, even after everything that I did to you."

Xander considered this.

Xander – "And what if I had tried to take advantage of you?"

Cordelia – "I would've kicked you in the groin and hit you with my pepper spray."

Xander – "Then I guess it's a good idea I didn't."

Cordelia – "I want you to know that it really meant a lot to me."

Buffy held up her hand as if in class and the two others looked at her.

Buffy, frankly – "I had sex with him."

Cordelia, coldly – "I had already guessed that. Xander, would you leave me and Buffy alone for a few minutes? We need to talk."

Xander nodded and left the room, more confused than when he entered it.

Once the doors closed behind him, Cordelia's cold glare melted.

Cordelia, curiously – "So how was he?"

Buffy, giggling – "Wow! I really recommend getting him into your bed. He's so much fun."

Cordelia, skeptically – "Really? You're not just saying that because of the spell?"

Buffy – "Oh no. I'm serious. If I were you, I'd tap that ass every night. Hell, I was going to do it again and I'm back to being me."

Cordelia – "About that. You realize that I'll kill you if I catch you trying that again."

Buffy, sighing – "Okay but if you ever dump him again then I'm in there like swimwear."

Cordelia - "If I was the jealous type, I might take offence at that."

Buffy – "But you're not, are you?"

Cordelia thought about it.

Cordelia – "Maybe. I'm not sure."

Buffy – "Still friends?"

Cordelia, laughing a little – "You thought we were friends?"

Buffy – "Oh, very funny. You know, I'm the one getting shafted here."

Cordelia, laughing even more – "In more ways than one."

Buffy – "What I mean is I'm now boyfriendless again. That's what it'll say on my gravestone. Boyfriendless Buffy."

Cordelia, shaking her head – "It doesn't roll off the tongue. Besides, you've still got Angel."

Buffy, groaning – "Don't remind me. Last night, instead of staking him, I threw dirt at him."

Cordelia – "Well, that's a step up from what you have been doing. And Jenny could still fix his curse back to normal. So it's not totally hopeless."

The door to the library opened and Giles and Jenny Calendar walked in. Both Jenny and Buffy tensed instantly upon seeing each other. Jenny had an almost identical white patch on her neck to the one Xander had.

Jenny turned to Giles and said something about seeing him later then quickly made her exit.

Giles hemmed and straightened up even more, to appear more like an authority figure.

Giles – "Cordelia. Could I please have a moment of Buffy's time?"

Cordelia frowned but nodded and left.

Buffy stood in place with her head hanging low.

He walked over to her and put his hand into his inside vest pocket to take something out.

Buffy clenched up and closed her eyes in anticipation for whatever pain Giles was going to dish out.

But no pain came.

Giles – "Buffy. The council wants you to have this."

Buffy hesitantly opened an eye and saw that Giles was holding out a pair of blue sunglasses for her.

Now truly dumbfounded, she took the glasses and looked at them, not understanding the reason behind them.

Giles – "Put them on."

Buffy did so and blinked. The world behind them was made out of blues and greens but it also removed all of her vampire enhanced vision. Giles didn't look like a human shaped tub of icecream to her anymore. He just looked like Giles. A slightly green Giles but Giles just the same.

Giles – "Does that help?"

Buffy, nodding – "This wasn't what I was expecting."

Giles, with a raised eyebrow – "You were expecting a beating?"

Buffy nodded quietly.

Giles sighed before answering.

Giles – "Obviously the love spell had an unexpected effect on you. I can't hold that against you although I would ask that you try to stay away from Ms Calendar for a while. She's still very traumatized by what you .. by what transpired."

Buffy, nodding quickly – "I will."

Giles – "That's all."

Buffy dutifully moved to leave then stopped and smiled at Giles.

Buffy – "Thanks for the glasses. I think they'll help."

Giles – "That's nice. Now get to class. You don't want to be tardy."

Buffy turned around and left. Although they were both being civil it was obvious that some line had been crossed. A line that couldn't be uncrossed.

Over the past few weeks, as Buffy had grown more and more into her vampire powers, Giles had noticed that her last tatters humanity were quickly corroding.

He silently hoped that whatever Buffy was supposed to do in this new prophecy of her that she did it soon.

Because maybe then he could put her to the rest she so dearly deserved.

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

More in next chapter.


	11. 4a Kiss me, I'm Irish

O-O-O-O

It was very early in the morning or very late at night depending on how you looked at it.

It was the first few minutes of magic hour, that twilight in the morning and in evening when the sun was lingering under the horizon but it still lit up the sky.

Buffy crept into her bedroom through the window after a night of patrolling. Once inside, she dropped her bag next to her bed, kicked her shoes off and slid off her jacket, placing it on the back of a chair.

Then she spun around with a stake in her hands and her game face on.

Angelus, calmly – "Put it down."

At his words, Buffy found herself unable to move for some reason.

Angelus had been waiting silently in the corner, blending into the background like a shadow.

Angel frowned and stepped forwards, out of the shadows.

Angel, a little more insistent – "I said put it down."

Buffy lowered her hand but kept the stake in it.

Angel moved even closer and brushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face.

Angel, now amused – "Buffy. You're shaking."

Buffy – "What are you doing here?"

Angel, as he casually unbuttoned her shirt – "I just wanted to see you."

Buffy looked down at his hands and back up at him.

Buffy, angrily but still trying to keep quiet – "What do you think you're doing? My mom is in the other room."

Angel – "That's what makes it so much fun. Now put the stake down so we can have some fun."

Despite herself, Buffy reached back and put the stake down on her dresser, the same place she kept the silver cross that the real Angel gave her so long ago.

Once he had her shirt unbuttoned, he pulled it back over her shoulders and it slid off to reveal Buffy wearing a tight-fitting sports bra underneath. Angel leant down and laid a trail of kisses along her neck while she cringed but seemed unable to stop him.

Then Angel stopped abruptly and took his head back to look her in the eye.

Angel, angrily holding her on the shoulder – "What's this from?"

Buffy – "Huh?"

Angel – "This bite. What it is from?"

Buffy – "It's from a werewolf."

Angel – "Oz did this to you?"

Buffy, defiantly looking him in the eyes – "That's right. Not that it's any of your business."

With a small growl, Angel lifted Buffy up and tossed her onto the bed. Then he got on top of her and kept her there, holding both her hands above her head with just one hand.

It was absurd. Buffy was twice as strong as him. She could break out of that without even trying. So then why didn't she? Why didn't she do something to stop him unzipping her pants and tugging them down past her ankles?

After removing her pants, he came back up to her eye level and slipped his hand under her panties.

Angel, almost growling – "You're mine. You can lie to yourself all you want but you're still mine. I own this!"

Angel did something with his hand that made Buffy grit her teeth in pain.

Angel, gently now – "I still remember it all. I remember how alive you were. The way your hair rested on the pillow. I can still remember feeling your pulse on my tongue as it faded away. Now tell me, who do you belong to?"

Buffy glared at him but didn't say anything. So Angel gave her another jerk which almost made her cry out in pain.

Angel – "Say it."

Buffy – "Stop it. You're hurting me."

Angel, playfully – "Say it. You know you want to."

Buffy – "Nnnhh. Ahh-I.."

Angel – "Am."

Buffy – "I am.. I'm yours."

Once it was said, Buffy let out an instant sigh of relief. It was short of lived though as she heard the zip of a fly and something pressing into her.

Angel, whispering – "Stay very still."

Buffy did as she was told and Angel eased into her. She closed her eyes and whimpered a little as Angel gently raped her.

Angel – "Doesn't that feel so good?"

She tried to fight it, she tried to ignore that her body was betraying her. She should have hated this but the more he controlled her, the more she gave into him.

Buffy, huskily – "Yesss"

With him inside her, the slayer was no more. She was only the vampire.

Buffy, opening her yellow vampire eyes – "Could you speed it up a little?"

Angel, chuckling – "As milady wishes."

O-O-O-O

Scene – A rented warehouse full of scientific and magical equipment, a few hours later.

Buffy had her new blue glasses on and was sitting in a chair with a small swarm of watchers milling around her.

She was bored, doing nothing except sitting while the Watchers milled around, seeming very interested in a few tests they had done on her earlier.

Giles broke off his conversation with a young watcher to talk to Buffy who seemed uncharacteristically quiet.

Giles – "Is everything okay?"

Buffy, sullenly – "I was just thinking, another battery of tests? Is it that time of year already?"

Giles – "Buffy. You understand that you represent a unique opportunity for the council, don't you?"

Buffy – "Yeah, whatever."

Giles – "Are you sure everything is okay?"

Buffy was about to reply when a watcher jabbed a needle into her arm to draw some more blood.

Buffy, growling a little – "Everything is just peachy."

Watcher, drawing the blood – "Sorry. I could have done that more gently."

Buffy, sighing – "I need a union."

Giles – "You seem a little out of sorts."

Buffy beckoned Giles forth with a gesture and glared at the watcher still taking a blood sample.

Buffy, to the lesser watcher – "Are you quite finished?"

The watcher took out the needle and hobbled off.

Buffy, calling after the fleeing watcher – "I'll be wanting that back after you're done with it!"

Giles came in close and Buffy gulped a little, trying to summon the courage to tell him what happened.

Buffy – "Could we talk outside?"

Giles looked around and frowned.

Giles – "I don't see why you would need to."

Buffy sighed deeply.

Buffy, whispering – "Angel visited me last night."

Giles gasped and a few of the nearby watches gasped. Buffy obviously hadn't whispered that quietly enough.

Some random watcher – "Angelus visited you last night? Where?"

Another watcher – "Was anyone killed?"

Yet another watcher – "Did you slay him?"

Buffy was freaked out by all the inquisitive questions and bolted out of there.

Giles was a little embarrassed by his charge and calmly followed after her.

He found her just outside, crying against the wall. He walked over and put his hand on her shoulder in a sympathetic way.

Buffy, spinning around and knocking his hand away angrily – "Don't touch me!"

Giles flinched back and Buffy quickly calmed herself.

Buffy – "Sorry."

Giles – "That's okay. Obviously you're upset. But why didn't you say anything earlier."

Buffy – "Because of them! I didn't want to say anything in front of the council."

Giles sighed. He hadn't really given her any option but to talk in front of them.

Giles – "What happened?"

Buffy – "He was in my bedroom. He did things to me."

Giles, raising an eyebrow – "Inside your bedroom? Did you invite him in?"

Buffy – "No! He was just there when I came home."

Giles – "I was hoping that his invitation was worn out since it was the original Angel that was invited in. I guess not. So what happened once you found him?"

Buffy – "I.. I couldn't fight him. Everything he told me to do, I did. I-I don't know why."

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Giles, with his eyes closed – "I was afraid of this."

Buffy, shocked – "You-you knew this would happen and you didn't tell me?"

Giles, holding his hands out in a passively defensive position – "No. I didn't know it. I just suspected it."

Buffy – "Start with the explaining."

Giles – "Buffy, since the council began, it has studied vampires. Yet there's still a lot we don't know. We do know that most vampires adhere to some sort of natural hierarchy similar to many animal species. The pecking order is loosely based on age and who turned who, although that is not always the case. There have been cases of sires being dominated by their childe. In most cases however, it would seem that there is some sort of biological imperative inherent in all vampires that restrains a childe from destroying their sire and possibly instilling obedience towards their elders. Many believe that this is the basis for all organization between vampires as they tend to be insanely chaotic in all other respects. This would also explain why you couldn't slay Angelus at the mall. It makes more sense than just pure sentimentality."

Buffy – "So what? You mean there's nothing I can do to stop him coming into my room and having his way with me whenever he wants?"

Giles slowly put his glasses back on as he collected his thoughts.

Giles – "In time, you should outgrow it. In vampire terms, you're still a fledgling. Not even a year old."

Buffy sighed with relief.

Buffy – "Good. So how long do I have to wait?"

Giles – "Not long."

Buffy sensed something was wrong.

Buffy, angrily – "How long!"

Giles – "If I were to guess.. no more than a decade."

Buffy gasped.

Buffy – "A DECADE! Giles, I don't think I-FUCK!"

Giles – "In the mean time, I'll ask the council to look into your case. There may very well be some methods to fight this."

Buffy, sarcastically – "Yeah. That's great. The tweed squad is on the case again."

Giles – "I would have you grant them more respect."

Buffy – "Yes. You're right. They've been great. It's just I'm so frustrated. How does Angel know all of my weaknesses when I don't even know them?"

Giles – "I suspect because when Angel regained his soul, he had to fight against the same instincts you're fighting against right now."

Buffy – "But I'm not him. I'm not strong like he is."

Giles, smiling slightly – "Buffy. You're perhaps the strongest person I know and I'm not talking about how much you can lift."

Buffy's bottom lip trembled and a few fresh tears rolled down her cheek.

Buffy – "You really mean that?"

Giles – "Yes. I do."

Buffy took off her blue glasses to wipe away the tears.

Buffy, hugging Giles - "Thanks for the egoboo."

Giles, gently breaking out of the hug - "That's quite okay. But don't you think we should get back inside? The tweed squad is waiting."

Buffy, snorting a little – "Yeah. I guess we should."

Giles – "Of course, you know that we're going to have to tell the others about this."

Buffy blinked at him.

Buffy – "But why! Oh. Right. Angelus. Evil vampire. In their houses. I keep forgetting."

O-O-O-O

Scene – School library, at the beginning of lunch break, later on in the day.

The Scoobies were assembled in the library. This meeting didn't include Willow and Oz who were off dealing with actual schoolwork at that time.

Xander – "So let me get this straight. Not only can Angel walk into our houses now but Buffy won't be any help in fighting him?"

Buffy – "Oh, I can fight him. Sometimes. I just can't seem poke him with sharp pieces of wood in the right places."

Xander – "Here I was thinking that's what being a Slayer was all about. I guess you've proved me wrong."

Buffy – "Hey! You think this is hard for you? You're not the one who got turned by the mass murderer."

Cordelia – "But I thought vampires could only come in if you invite them in."

Buffy – "Yeah. About that. You only have to invite them in once. Like I invited Angel in once when I was still alive."

Cordelia – "So did I! Into my car! Except for the whole previously alive part."

Xander, sighed – "We all did. Except me. And now I can say I told you so."

Giles – "Xander. This is not the time for such flippant remarks. Angelus has proved himself incredibly dangerous over the century that he was in control. Now that he knows that he can get into Buffy's bedroom, he will know that he could get into any of our homes except perhaps yours."

Xander, snapping his fingers a few times – "Snaps for me. See, if we lived in a horror movie, I'd obviously be the survivor."

Cordelia, snorting – "Why? Because you never get laid?"

Buffy – "Come on, Xander. If we lived in a horror movie, I'd be the survivor."

Xander, looking at her funny – "How do you figure?"

Buffy - "Duh! I vant to vipe your vindows. If we were in a horror movie, I'd be the horror, wouldn't I? The bad guys never die. Jason, Freddy, that guy with the phantom of the opera mask, they never really die. They just kind sleep between sequels."

Giles – "I think we're drifting away from the actual topic here."

Buffy, nodding – "Yes. We are. Bad Xander. Giles, wouldn't there be some sort of barrier to keep vampires out of our homes? Uh, I mean specific vampires. Like all vampires except me. I'd still want to go home to sleep."

Giles – "Yes, I believe there would be some form of renewing the sanctity of the hearth. I'll just need to check my books. Perhaps call some people. Something should turn up."

Buffy – "And until then, what? All us girls hide from the bogeyman at Xanders?"

Xander smiled and Cordelia slugged him in the arm, stopping that daydream.

Giles – "Pairing up at nights might not be such a bad idea. Cordelia, unless you have invited Angel into your home, would you mind having Willow stay the night? And Buffy, you could stay at Xanders."

Cordelia, frowning – "Hang on. That doesn't sound like a good idea."

Buffy – "Yeah. What about my mom? I can't just leave her alone in that house for Angel to find."

Cordelia – "That wasn't what I was thinking of but good point. Go Buffy."

Giles frowned – "Perhaps if both Cordelia and Willow spend the night at Buffy's to protect Buffy?"

Cordelia snorted.

Cordelia – "Strange. When I joined this freak show, I don't remember anything in my contract about suicide missions."

Xander – "You obviously didn't read the fine print."

Giles – "Very drole, Xander but the fact is that-"

Giles stopped talking when the main doors opened and Jenny Calendar walked in. As soon as Jenny spotted Buffy, the vampire and the techno-pagan both tensed.

Jenny – "I'm sorry. I'll come back later."

Buffy, getting up and putting her backpack on – "No. Stay. We were just leaving."

Xander and Cordelia soon followed suit.

Giles, getting up with the youths – "Are-are you sure?"

Buffy, nodding – "Yes. We'll figure something out between each other."

It was an unspoken agreement. No one talked about what Buffy did to Jenny. In truth, no one was ever told what happened but the way those two reacted around each other, it wasn't pleasant.

Jenny looked straight ahead, tight-lipped and avoided eye contact while the teenagers passed by her on their way out.

Giles – "Yes, Ms. Calendar?"

Jenny, a little shaken – "I, um, remembered what you said this morning about Angelus. I brought you a book that I don't think you have. It has a section on uninviting vampires."

Giles stepped forward and Jenny handed him the book. Giles skimmed through it with immediate interest.

Giles – "Ah Yes. This should be very useful. Thank you."

Jenny, abruptly – "I'm leaving."

Giles – "Uh, yes. Very well."

Jenny – "Town."

Giles blinked at her for a few seconds, not knowing what to say.

Jenny – "I just can't stay here. Not around Buffy."

Giles – "You can't blame her for what happened."

Jenny – "I don't. Not anymore. But I can't forget it. The only reason I haven't left already is because of my duty."

Giles, nodding – "To your clan."

Jenny – "No. Mostly to you."

Giles looked up from the ground at her, surprised yet again.

Jenny – "You opened my eyes to what was really important. It's not vengeance or whatever my crazy family tells me to do but people and lives and everything else that actually matters .. and you."

Gile – "And me?"

Jenny – "I know you don't want to have anything to do with me after what happened. That's also why I can't stay."

Giles stepped closer, a little confused but desperately wanting to straighten that confusion out.

Giles – "Jenny. I don't care about what happened. I don't care about your ancestry or whatever Buffy did to you. I admit that I felt betrayed when I found out that you left out so much about yourself but I can look past that. I can look past that and see you, who you really are."

Jenny looked up and found herself gazing into those inquisitive yet warmly human eyes of the man she first knew as the school librarian.

Jenny – "Who am I? Because I don't know anymore."

Somehow, as they had been talking, they found themselves within kissing distance. Not willing to wait anymore, Jenny crushed her mouth into his, fuelled by anguish, want and a need for some sort of clarity, of closure.

After the kiss, they broke off gently and Giles was frowning slightly.

Jenny – "Was that too forward for you, British?"

Giles – "No. That was fine. Th-That was smashing. But to be honest, I'd lost all hope that we'd ever kiss again."

Jenny – "Why would you think that?"

Giles – "Because it was I who sent you away with Buffy. It was asking a lot even when I didn't know what would happen."

Jenny laughed a little and play-slapped Giles on the arm.

Jenny, still laughing - "Yeah. You jerk. It's obviously all your fault."

O-O-O-O

Meanwhile, Buffy was walking down the hallway with Xander and Cordelia, talking about her morning being prodded and poked by the Watchers council.

Buffy – "Then one of the watchers started talking to me about how my life reminded him about the episode when Chachi got two dates with two different girls but at the exact same time."

Xander and Cordelia nodded, remembering just how bad that episode was.

Xander – "Buff?"

Buffy, smiling his way – "Yes?"

Xander – "The glasses. I never got a straight answer before. Are they magic or what?"

Buffy took off her blue glasses and let him take a look at them.

Buffy – "No. They're just tinted."

Xander, looking through the glasses – "So what's so great about them?"

Buffy – "They're like those beta-blockers. Except instead of just blocking harmful glare, these sunglasses block out the fact that you two look like giant walking donuts to me."

Cordelia and Xander blinked at her.

Buffy – "No. It's true. Xander, you're obviously a chocolate filled one. Cordelia, I think you're a something little lighter. Maybe a tasty apple cinnamon donut."

Xander handed the glasses back quickly and Buffy put them back on, still smiling.

Xander – "So without those glasses, we look like food?"

Buffy – "Pretty much."

Cordelia – "So what sort of donut would Willow be?"

Buffy snorted – "Isn't it obvious? A strawberry jelly."

Cordelia – "I can't imagine Giles as a donut though. He comes off as more of a bagel."

Buffy stopped with a jerk and looked around.

Xander, noticing the jerk – "What's up?"

Buffy frowned and looked around some more.

Buffy – "I'm not sure. You two go on. I need to go back to my locker anyway."

Buffy pulled back and stopped as the other two kept walking, thinking nothing of it.

Something was off. She could tell. She carefully looked around for some clue and then she got one.

The door to the basement was open. It was normally closed. Normally that wouldn't mean anything to her but right now she thought it looked very suspicious.

The hallway was now empty so she thought nothing of sneaking into the basement to take a look.

She hadn't been down in the basement since she had been turned and found it to be a very different experience.

The clammy air smelt sweet with decay and tobacco from the cigarettes smuggled into the school to be shared between pressured peers.

The thought of that made her skin tingle a little and as she descended down the stairs, even deeper into the cold concrete tomb, something else started tingling too.

Angelus was here.

Buffy turned to him, almost calmly. He was leaning so silently against the wall that he could've almost been part of it.

Angelus, moving just enough to smile – "Hey heart breaker. I knew you'd come"

As if in a dream, Buffy slowly walked over to him and up to him, taking him into a hug. Her face told a different story. It held in it a mix of shock, disbelief and despair.

Angel, just as Buffy was about to say something – "Ssh. Don't worry yourself. I'm just here for you."

Buffy sighed with some relief and rested her head back on his chest. Angel held her like this with a strange uncaring smile on his face as Buffy unbuttoned his shirt and started to gently kiss his bare chest.

Slowly, her mouth crept up and she hiked herself up to his neck by wrapping her legs around his waist.

Angelus – "You're still my girl?"

Buffy, meaning it – "Forever."

O-O-O-O

Scene – School Library, again.

Jenny and Giles were making small talk when in walked Robson, a personable watcher that Giles counted as a friend. By the look on his face, he expected to find Giles alone.

Giles hemmed a little.

Robson, making some story up – "Ah, Rupert Giles. Just the man I was looking for. I, um, would like to use your expertise in archaeology to, uh, help decipher some, uh, papyrus I found on my travels to, uh, Cairo. Yes?"

Jenny, to Giles – "Are all watchers that obvious when they're lying?"

Giles, casually – "Some more than others. I suppose he's here for some important reason though. Shall I see you later?"

Jenny – "Definitely. I'll see you in the teachers lounge after the last bell. We can talk again then."

Jenny walked out of the room, giving Robson a disconcerting smile as she walked by.

Giles, catching the other watchers attention – "Robson. What did you want to talk about?"

Robson – "It's about Buffy. There's something the council hasn't told you yet."

Giles looked a little alarmed. By Robson's tone, this was a grave situation indeed.

Giles, gesturing into his office – "We'll talk in here."

The two watchers made their way into the office and closed the door behind them so no one would overhear.

Robson sat down as Giles stayed standing to prepare some tea.

Robson – "The council hasn't been entirely honest with you."

Giles, not surprised – "In what way?"

Robson – "When you asked if Buffy's case was unique."

Giles frowned at Robson.

Giles – "There have been other Slayers turned?"

Robson – "Yes. Quite a few actually."

Giles, intrigued – "And they all turned as Buffy did? Much as they did while alive?"

Robson – "Some more than others. The turning process for Slayers is unpredictable. Too unpredictable if you catch my meaning."

Giles – "I don't feel that I do."

Robson – "The Slayer turned has always been a mystery for the council. Why some Slayers retain shreds of their humanity while some retain not even their ability to speak. Some become stronger while some become weaker, not only in strength and physical abilities but in other ways too."

Giles – "You're saying they're all different?"

Robson – "Very much so. From what we can gather, it has something to do with the nature of Slayers."

Giles – "I truly don't follow."

Robson – "As I'm sure you're aware, Slayers have a predatory nature similar to vampires in some respects. The main difference is Slayers intuitively target the supernatural."

Giles – "I would hardly call that predatory. I would call it protective."

Robson – "I suppose you might if you didn't know the truth."

Giles – "And what truth is this?"

Robson – "That Slayers are not only drawn to slay evil but it is what fuels their powers."

Giles paused and considered this.

Robson – "That's right, Rupert. Their strength, their endurance, their incredible constitutions are all fed by their kills. Upon a vampires death, the same energy released to immolate their remains is absorbed in part by the Slayer. We don't tell the girls any of this as it draws unnecessary parallels to vampires and their kind."

Giles – "I see. That is.. curious. Although I can't see why I wasn't told."

Robson – "It definitely puts a different slant on Slayers, doesn't it? Now Slayers which are turned are a special case. In that period of death between being turned and rising as a vampire, they're especially .. absorptive. Not only do they absorb death but they have a bad habit of absorbing stray magics. This accounts for the vast differences between turned Slayers. It also brings us to the problem with Buffy Summers."

Giles – "There's a problem?"

Robson – "Indeed. We have found something very disturbing bound to her. The soul of Angelus. Since she was turned so soon after he lost it, somehow, she absorbed it."

Giles blinked, sat down and blinked some more.

Giles – "She has his soul instead of her own? That's why she's helping us? She's actually Angel?"

Robson – "No. We checked thoroughly. His soul has absolutely no control over her at all regardless of the fact that now it's an integral part of her. This does means that Angelus can never be resouled. If he was, his soul have to be forcibly removed from her and that would cause a spiritual haemorrhage. In a human, it would be almost instantly fatal. In a vampire, we're not entirely sure what the effect would be."

Giles – "But you're guessing fatal?"

Robson nodded.

Giles – "So we kill Angelus."

Robson, hesitantly – "Normally a capital idea. One of the little problems with this is that the instant Angelus is slain, Buffy will go psychotic and probably kill a lot of people."

Giles – "Excuse me? I believe you're underestimating her sanity."

Robson – "Oh, it's not a slight against Buffy, believe me. There is a psychic connection between the vampire childe and sires. One of the peculiarities of turned Slayers is that when we destroy their sires, somehow, their sires are absorbed by the Slayers through that connection. The whiplash, if you would, involved in this causes almost instant, violent and possibly never-ending psychosis. I'm not understating this either."

Giles – "Well, sod it. What are we supposed to do then?"

Robson – "Destroy Buffy."

Giles, calmly this time – "But why? She's on our side."

Robson – "Because Angelus' soul cannot be restored without killing her and he can't be killed without her killing others. Also he will eventually regain control of her. So we must destroy her before that happens."

Giles – "Now hold on there. She fought him once to save my life. We don't know he will regain control."

Robson – "Actually we do. Our tests are conclusive. You see, there is a marker in vampire blood. By measuring this marker, we can establish whether a vampire is a master or a minion. A month ago, if you had asked, we would have said Buffy had the attributes of a master vampire. Since then, her blood has turned to being that of a minion. There's really no fighting biology."

Giles – "But surely there is something we could do. Perhaps if we chained Angelus down and just kept him that way."

Robson raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Robson – "Do you really believe it's possible to take him alive? Besides, in time, Buffy will crave the attention of a new master. It's the way of vampires."

Giles – "Perhaps there is some other magical means available to us."

Robson – "I don't see any."

Giles – "There's always something. It doesn't have to be ideal. It just has to give us time. Perhaps if we had some other demon possess Angelus?"

Robson raised his sceptical eyebrow again.

Giles – "All right. That's a bad idea. How about calling in a necromancer?"

Robson's sceptical eyebrow just stayed in the raised position to save on energy.

Giles – "You're right. I'm talking out of my behind. Tea?"

Robson, with a smile - "Certainly."

O-O-O-O

About an hour later.

The school bell rang and lunch was officially over. Students walked off to catch their classes as the doorway into the basement opened and Buffy stumbled through it, pulling her underwear back up as she did.

Someone called out and Buffy turned around, adjusting her clothes as she did.

Willow – "Buffy. Where were you? We were going to go over your geography, remember?"

Buffy swallowed a little, her mouth was so dry.

Buffy – "I'm sorry. I got distracted."

Willow, frowning – "And you're not wearing your glasses anymore?"

Buffy, turning away – "I broke them."

Willow followed after Buffy as they moved over to their lockers.

Willow – "Buffy, is everything okay?"

Buffy didn't answer. Instead she focused on twiddling the combination for her locker. Once it was open, Buffy took out her bag and from that took out her thermos of blood. Not even caring if anyone was looking, Buffy twisted the cap off and slugged it back.

Once it was empty, she groaned and put everything back the way it was.

Willow – "Uh, Buffy. You've got a little blood moustache."

Buffy took out a handkerchief and wiped it off.

Buffy – "Better?"

Willow nodded but still frowned in that way she did.

Willow – "Is everything okay?"

Buffy, pushing past Willow – "Just leave it alone."

O-O-O-O

Scene – the vampire's nest, main dining hall.

Spike was trying to read the newspaper but Angelus' good mood was ruining it for him. Angelus was lying on the large dining table, fiddling with Buffy's perfectly unbroken blue glasses as he tried to figure out the attraction to wearing them.

Angel – "Kids these days. They've got too much money. That's their problem."

Spike, complaining – "So you can boff her? Big kudos. Americans are easy. But can you get her to kill her friends? I don't think so. She won't even let you kill them."

Angel – "It's only a matter of time."

Spike – "What is it about you and blondes anyway? We're in bloody California. There's probably more girls to your liking here than in Nazi Germany. Why chase the bloody slayer? You're starting to sound like me."

Spike tilted his head curiously and wondered where that logic came from.

Angel, with a silly smile – "But there's only one Buffy. There'll always only be one Buffy."

Drusilla, coming out from behind Spike – "What's the matter, Spoik? Our family's better than ever now with our Angel back."

Spike, bitterly – "Yeah. I can see you've been having fun with him. Forgotten all about the man who's been taking care of you since he left."

Drusilla pouted and sulked.

Spike, sighing – "Sorry. I'm just going stir crazy stuck in this hole in the wall. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

Angel – "Well, I did turn Dru. Can't blame me if I want what's mine."

Drusilla put her hands up to her temples and thumped them, as if trying to shake the cobwebs free.

Spike, frowning – "Dru?"

Drusilla, having a worrying vision – "Stop that!"

Angel got off the table and held Drusilla as she sank into a seat.

Angel – "Dru? What is it?"

Drusilla – "The wind. It whispers wickedness. It's them. No, not them! Why won't they just die? I want them dead."

Angel looked over to Spike, who shrugged.

Angel, turning back to Drusilla – "Who is it? Who do you want dead?"

Drusilla, still moaning – "The ones with the souls. The ones who took you from us."

Angel, in realization – "Ah. Them."

O-O-O-O

Jenny smiled at the owner of a magic store.

Jenny – "So you have an orb of Thesulah? Spirit vaults for rites against the undead?"

The owner, nodding casually – "Yeah sure. How many do you want? We've got plenty. Just got a new shipment in."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	12. 4b Plural and possessive

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library, after school.

Buffy walked and found Giles in his office with a worried look on his face. They both looked at each other for a while before talking.

Buffy – "Angel took my glasses."

Giles blinked, only now just realising her glasses were missing.

Buffy – "Uh. Can we get more? I hope they weren't expensive."

Giles, alarmed – "Angel? Angel was here?"

Buffy nodded, avoiding eye contact.

Giles – "What did he do?"

Buffy – "He didn't do anything except for taking my glasses as a souvenir."

Giles, frowning – "What did he really do?"

Buffy – "Nothing. Honestly. He was just.. waiting.. for me. I-I just.."

Buffy stopped talking and covered her face with her hands as she burst into tears. Giles helped down into one of the chairs in his office.

Buffy – "Giles. I can't stand this anymore. He made me want him. He didn't even say anything. He just stood there and I made love to him. He made me love him. How can he do that?"

Giles – "I'm not entirely sure."

Buffy, sniffing a little – "Could I.. Could I have some blood please? I ran out at lunch."

Giles – "Oh, of course. I'll just get some."

Giles opened the fridge and handed her one of blood packs from it. Buffy's vampire face turned on as she used the sharper teeth to break through the plastic lining.

Giles, while she drank – "I've been researching the link between sire and childe. I've yet to have found anything useful to our situation but I'm sure something exists. I just have to find it before it's too late."

With Giles' back turned to her, Buffy tilted her head curiously with the blood pack still in her mouth. Then she went back to draining it completely and sticking it in Giles' rubbish bin.

Buffy – "You know what I really don't get? I wasn't even, you know, in the mood or anything like that. I just found him and then proceeded to hump his brains out. It doesn't make sense."

Giles – "Yes, that's more than enough information. Thank you, Buffy."

Buffy – "I'm sorry. But this should be hurting me more than it is."

Giles – "You're just in shock."

Buffy – "No. I'm not. That's the problem. I wanted him. I wanted him and there he was so –"

Slap!

Buffy reeled in her chair from Giles slapping her in the face. It's not that it hurt. It did hurt but that wasn't the shocking part.

Giles, angrily pointing his finger at her face – "Now you listen here. That's your vampire side talking. Not the part of you that's the slayer. Not the part we call Buffy. I never want to hear you talk like that again."

Buffy just looked back at him like he was a stranger.

Giles – "Is that clear?"

Buffy, with her game face turning off – "Yes. I understand."

Giles reached over to the fridge again, pulled out two more blood packs and slapped them on the desk.

Giles – "This should last you for the rest of the night. I take it you've made arrangements for tonight?"

Buffy nodded silently.

Giles – "Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I've somewhere to be."

With that, Giles took his briefcase, a few books off his desk and left Buffy alone in the room.

Buffy waited until his back was turned and she poked a tongue out at him. Once she heard him leave the library, she got up and opened the fridge by his desk and took out another blood pack and stacked it on top of her pile.

O-O-O-O

Scene - Willow's bedroom.

Both Buffy and Willow were in their pyjamas and sitting on Willow's bed.

Willow, hopefully – "Do you want to study for history?"

Buffy, not interested – "Nah."

Willow – "Have you done your essay on post-modern noir for drama?"

Buffy – "Yup."

Willow frowned, looking down at the bed then back up.

Buffy, before Willow asked something else – "Giles is hiding something from me."

Willow blinked and shook her head.

Willow, jumping to defend Giles – "No he's not. Why would he?"

Buffy – "I don't know. I think it has something to do with that book Jenny gave him."

Willow – "I'm sure Jenny's given him lots of books before."

Buffy, frowning – "Yeah but .. Willow, I need your help with something."

Willow – "It doesn't involve going behind Giles' back, does it?"

Buffy – "Umm. Actually it does but only slightly. I think Giles knows a way to remove this problem I have with Angel but he's not telling me and I don't know why."

Willow, frowning – "Umm. I'm sure he's got a reason."

Buffy tilted her head at Willow curiously, giving Willow a chilling, penetrating stare.

Buffy – "Why are you lying to me?"

Willow, gulping – "I'm not lying to you."

Buffy growled and crept along the bed closer to Willow. Willow fell over sideways on to the bed and put her hands up to stop Buffy. It didn't work and a second later, Buffy was had pushed her way past her defences until she was an inch away from Willow's neck. Willow squealed almost inaudibly as Buffy's nose rubbed against her jaw.

Buffy, whispering - "You know that your heart thumps a little harder when you're lying."

Willow – "Are you sure it's not just because of you?"

Buffy – "It could be but I don't think so. Now what aren't you telling me?"

Willow – "It's nothing. Really."

Buffy growled and turned her game face on.

Buffy, in a bad German accent – "Ve haf vays of makink you talk."

Willow, shaking her head emphatically – "No-no, I-I-I-"

Buffy – "You what?"

Willow – "It-it's in a book."

Buffy – "Really? What's in a book."

Willow pointed very awkwardly across the room.

Willow – "I've got the book. I can show you."

Buffy smiled and her gameface disappeared.

Buffy – "Good Willow. Go find that book."

Buffy let Willow off the bed. Willow walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out one of the books she had hidden behind it. With shaky hands, she opened it up to a page and held it out to show Buffy.

Willow – "There's only one way we know to break the link between sires and their childes but Giles told me not to tell you."

Buffy took the book and sighed.

Buffy – "Willow, I'm flattered that you're scared of me but you can stop trembling now."

Willow didn't stop trembling.

Buffy – "I'm serious. I wasn't really going to hurt you."

Willow nodded a little and lied – "Oh. Yeah. I knew that."

Buffy, a little saddened how easily Willow was scared by her – "You're my best friend. You know that right? Out of everyone, you've treated me the best since, you know. Since I changed."

Willow mumbled something unintelligible then just nodded a little and calmed down.

Seeing that Willow wasn't going to do anything crazy like scream to her parents for help, Buffy looked into the book. She was pleasantly surprised to find it full of vampire-based facts.

Buffy - "Hey, this book's great. What is it?"

Buffy looked at the cover, which was black with big white letters which read "VAMPYRE"

Buffy – "Huh. That's strange. Gile's Vampyre book is a whole lot bigger."

Willow – "Mine just has a smaller font. His is the large print version for people with bad eyesight."

Buffy – "Where's the part about Sires? Oh, I got it. So you just…"

Buffy read the section. Then she reread it and reread it again.

Buffy – "Wait. How does this work? What's this word mean? Transfuciate?"

Willow – "It's a thing vampire's do. It's like turning but they do it to other vampires."

Buffy squinted her eyes at Willow.

Buffy – "Uh huh. I get the idea. But why would they do that?"

Willow – "It's umm, a control thing."

Buffy – "Go on."

Willow – "When one vampire feeds another vampire their own blood, it instils obedience. I mean, it instills obedience in the lesser vampire if one of the vampires is a master. You understand? It's done when one master vampire kills another vampire master, they will sometimes feed their own blood to the left over minions to gain their support."

Buffy, nodding – "Okay. I think I get it. But this doesn't help me. Does it?"

Willow – "No. It doesn't. You're not old enough yet to overpower Angelus. Your blood is too thin."

Buffy – "But what if we caught a different vampire and I fed off him? Wouldn't that work?"

Willow – "No. Because their age would have to be comparable to Angels and let's face it, who are we going to get? Right now, Angel is probably the oldest vampire in Sunnydale. The only people we know of that would work would be Spike or Drusilla and they're just as bad as him."

Buffy, pensively – "Yeah. I guess."

Willow – "So you won't try anything like that, will you?"

Buffy – "No. But.."

Then Buffy tilted her head at Willow and gave her a piercing look.

Willow, suddenly worried – "Buffy. I told you everything I know."

Buffy – "No. You didn't."

Willow – "Please. That's it."

Buffy stopped short of stalking Willow across the bedroom and sighed.

Buffy, softening her face into a small smile – "No. It's not. But I'll let you go for now. Because you're my best friend."

Willow, laughing awkwardly – "Yeah. That's right. Your friend."

Buffy – "No really. I don't want to hurt you. Not even for fun."

Willow, still a little unsure – "Really?"

Buffy nodded as she purred and wrapped her arms around Willow's waist.

Buffy – "Hey, are you sure you don't want me to share the bed with you tonight."

Willow pushed her off and tried to look annoyed.

Willow – "You said you wouldn't ask me things like that."

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "I was joking. Just trying to lighten the mood. Sorry for the effort."

Willow sighed and turned her back to put the book back while Buffy pouted behind her back.

What Willow doesn't know can't hurt her.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Computer class at night.

Jenny was tapping her fingers on the desk, waiting impatiently for the little progress bar on her computer screen to fill. Once it had, she went about saving her work and getting a print out of it.

Then she heard the sound of paper being torn and she spun around to find Angelus with what she had just printed out in his hands.

Angelus, reading the header - "Restoration of a human soul. The same spell your clan used on me a century ago. Frankly, I'm impressed you translated it. This is supposed to be in a dead language. Measures were taken to kill it."

Jenny – "Angelus."

Angel, smiling – "Yes. It's really me. Doesn't it just give you goosebumps?"

Jenny – "But how did you get in?"

Angel, chuckling – "This is a school. Not a private residence. I would've thought you knew how this works by now."

While she was still in her chair, he leant over her shoulder and looked at the monitor.

Angel, right next to her ear – ""Don't scream. Not yet. Just wait a little longer. Ooh, look. There is it, in your little computer. And you've got an orb of Thesulah. They're so pretty but they break just so easily."

Angel held the orb in front of her face. It glowed as he clenched his hand and it broke into almost a glassy powder that slipped through his fingers and onto the lap of her skirt.

Angel – "Just like Gypsies."

Then Angel pushed the monitor off the desk with a decent amount of force. When it hit the ground it broke with a loud pop.

Jenny – "But I could give you back your soul. Just let me live and I'll do that for you."

His game face morphed on as he growled. He grabbed the rest of the computer, slammed it against the ground, breaking it into pieces from the impact.

Angel – "Don't want it! I never did. What your clan did to me… I almost wish I could do it back to them. This, right now, is how I'm meant to be. Don't you get that? A soul isn't something you should want. It's a prison. You think I'm the dead one, don't you? But I'm more alive than the sheep will ever be. You don't know how it feels to just take what you want and slide your teeth into it. You really should try it some time."

Then for some reason Angelus wasn't familiar with, the monitor slowly caught on fire. He chuckled at his fortune and dropped the print out onto the fire, letting it burn.

As he did this, Jenny backed up towards the exit.

Angelus, not even turning her way - "You know that if you make me run, it will just make me that much more hungrier."

Jenny ran out of the room. It looked like Angelus wasn't chasing her at all but she didn't stop running.

She ran to the front doors out of the school but found them locked with a chain locked around the handles. She rattled the doors back and forth a few times just for the hell of it then decided to keep on running and find some other exit.

Then Angel slammed into her from the side, knocking her into a wall and into a pile on the ground. He knocked the wind out of her and in the darkness, her vision blackened so much she had a hard time seeing even Angel's pasty white face.

With a sigh, Angel picked her up by her shirt, tearing it a little as he got to her feet.

Angel – "So disappointing. The last Gypsy I killed at least put up a fight."

And there Jenny was, wondering why her last thoughts weren't of Giles or how she failed her clan or even of the horror of the monster holding her. For some strange reason, she couldn't stop thinking about her shoes.

Why did she wear such clunky clogs to school? Sure they were fashionable but when you're running for your life it's obvious that she should be wearing sport shoes or sneakers.

But to Jenny's misfortune, those weren't her last thoughts at all. I won't divulge her actual last thoughts because you really don't want to know. Some things really should be left unsaid.

Angelus, as he stroked her hair almost lovingly – "You know what? I think I'll do something special with you."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Outside the Summer's residence.

Willow and Buffy were sitting outside on the porch, enjoying the night time air when Giles' car parked to a stop alongside the footpath.

He got out and approached the girls with a smile.

Giles – "Willow. Buffy. Good evening."

The girls each gave him back a "Hi."

Willow, getting up to give him back a book – "The spell you gave us to keep Angel out of our homes, it worked really well."

Giles took the book and smiled.

Giles – "That's good but how could you tell?"

Willow hemmed a little and turned to Buffy.

Willow – "Buffy, would you do the honours?"

Buffy sighed, got up and leaned against an invisible force field in the front doorway which barred her from her own home.

Giles – "Oh dear. I see. That is.. Oh dear."

Buffy – "Don't worry. Sooner or later mom will tell me to come in."

Joyce, in the distance – "Buffy, come in before you catch your death."

Buffy's eyes went wide as she fell backwards through the doorway.

Willow and Giles helped her up.

Buffy, groaning – "I'm fine. Nothing's hurt."

Giles – "Now that we know it's effective I guess that I should go perform it on my apartment."

Buffy groaned again but for something unrelated to her fall.

Buffy – "This is just great. Now I need to get new invites for everywhere."

Giles – "Then I invite you into my residence now and save you the hassle."

Buffy, frowning – "That doesn't mean a lot since you're going to erase that invite in five minutes time."

Giles frowned and Willow patted Buffy on the shoulder slightly.

Willow, with a smile – "I invite you into my place and I've already cast the spell."

Buffy, hugging her gently – "Aww, thanks Will. That means a lot to me."

Willow made a funny face only Giles saw.

Willow, to Giles – "Have you found that Buffy's been hugging you a lot recently?"

Giles repositioned his glasses a little and nodded a little.

Giles – "Perhaps"

Buffy – "What? I can't hug now? It's something two consenting adults can - I mean, there's nothing wrong with hugging. It's good and wholesome and totally natural."

Willow, as Giles walked off to his car – "No. It's not that. It's just you really have been hugging me a lot."

Buffy, play pouting – "But you're so huggable."

Giles waved a little and the two girls waved back as he drove off in his almost comically small car.

Willow, frowning – "But I'm not really that huggable at all. You might not have noticed but I'm actually kinda bony."

Buffy, shaking her head – "No. I'm bony. You're my soft, wonderfully squishy hug toy."

Willow looked around to make sure no one heard that.

Willow, whispering – "Buffy. I told you not to talk like that. What if someone heard? What would they think?"

Buffy, hopeful sounding – "That you're really fun to hug?"

Willow shook her head and Buffy frowned. Then Buffy smiled and hugged Willow some more.

Buffy, still hugging Willow – "Can you really stay mad at me?"

Willow, sighing – "I guess not."

Buffy, giggling – "Good. So you want to go in and get some hot chocolate? Or is that too racy for you?"

Willow – "I think I could go out on a limb just this once."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Outside Giles' apartment.

As Giles walked up to his apartment, he noticed some weak light coming from inside through the windows. A quick peek through the windows and he saw candles mood-lighting the room and heard some gentle yet soulful opera playing from inside.

After opening the door, he walked in, put his coat away and called out.

Giles – "Hello? Jenny? It's me."

On a desk was a metal bucket filled with ice and a bottle of champagne. Giles noted with a smile that he owned neither the bucket nor the champagne. There was a note on the desk which he took and unfolded. It read "Upstairs."

How did he get so lucky?

Jenny said she had good news when he talked to her earlier but he wasn't expecting this. Still, their relationship had been held in the dry docks for the last few weeks, ever since Angelus had returned. It seemed he wasn't the only one who wanted to step it along.

Getting himself ready, he loosened his tie and took off his glasses, laying them on the desk. Then he took the champagne and the two glasses next to the bucket.

He slowly walked up the stairs, not wanting to ruin the mood by letting his unease get to him and somehow falling over the railings or something equally clumsy. Each of the steps held a small candle, each with their own soft flame.

As he reached the top of the stairs, he saw Jenny lying on the bed.

She was so pale and she wasn't moving.

Why isn't she moving? Why isn't she breathing?

O-O-O-O

The next few minutes passed by like tornado ripping up the very ground of his soul. The pain, it was numbing and in some sick fashion he operated on autopilot.

Giles had stumbled down the stairs but got back up.

He phoned the police.

He stamped on one of the candles out before it caught the carpet on fire.

The police arrived and pushed him to the wall.

When he didn't struggle, they let him stay in that position.

Then more police came. There were photos taken and Jenny was taken away on a stretcher. They were gentle with her. They were respectful.

A police officer came up to Giles and hemmed a little to catch his attention. By the look of him, he was in charge of the case.

Policeman – "Mr. Giles, we need to you come with us. Just a few questions we need answered."

Giles nodded in response.

Giles – "Of course. Whatever you need. But might I phone someone first?"

The policeman let him, even handing him the phone.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Summers residence.

Willow and Buffy were in the kitchen with Joyce when the phone rang.

Buffy picked it up first.

Buffy – "Oh, hey Giles. What's the matter? Run out of crumpets?"

Then Buffy's face went blank and she slowly lowered the phone.

Seeing that something was wrong, Willow took the phone from her and put it to her own ear.

Willow – "Giles? W-what? Jenny? N-No! That-Nooo."

Willow blubbered up while Buffy took a cute leather jacket off the coat rack and put it on.

Joyce held Willow and turned to Buffy.

Joyce – "What's going on?"

Buffy, growling – "I'm going out!"

Before Joyce could stop her, Buffy had already slammed the front door closed and left.

O-O-O-O

Some time later, Xander and Cordelia arrived at Buffy's in Cordelia's car.

Willow came outside to meet them on the lawn.

Willow – "Where's Giles?"

Xander – "He must have gone home because he wasn't at the station. It doesn't look like he's a suspect. Where's Buffy?"

Buffy – "She split when she heard the news. I think she went somewhere to be.."

Cordelia – "A vampire?"

Willow nodded, not really liking how that sounded.

Xander – "Am I the only one getting sick of Angel?"

Willow – "Xander. That's enough. There's not really anything we can do about him."

Cordelia, nodding but not wanting to – "She's right. He's too strong now that he's got Spike and Drusilla on his side. You'd have to be insane to go up against him."

Xander – "Yeah but.. oh no. I just had a bad thought."

Willow – "What? Worse than what's already happened!"

Xander, nodding with dread – "What sort frame of mind do you think Giles is in right now? Insane?"

Willow – "Oh god. We should go to him and make sure he doesn't do anything crazy."

Cordelia – "I'll drive. Get in."

O-O-O-O

Mere minutes later and they arrived at Giles.

The door was left open, although it had yellow police tape bared across the doorway as if it was a magical ward against the emptiness within.

The three scoobies crept under the tape and into the room.

Willow, calling out – "Giles?"

Xander, noting the candles and the empty ice bucket – "I guess Giles had a big night planned."

Cordelia, picking up the champagne bottle – "I guess Giles had more class than I thought he did. This is real champagne."

Willow, hissing – "Cordelia, put that down. It could be evidence."

Cordelia put the bottle back down and looked for something to rub her fingerprints off with.

While the others looked around, Willow found Giles' weapon chest open and empty.

Willow – "Uh-oh, his weapons are gone."

Xander, turning to her – "What do you mean? We keep the weapons at the library."

Willow, shaking her head – "No. We keep some weapons at the library and some weapons at home, just in case. Uh, you do keep weapons at home, don't you?"

Cordelia, adding her two cents worth – "I know I do."

Xander, starting out as dismissive – "So his weapons are gone? Big woop. The police probably just took them for evidence.. or more likely they ignored them altogether and Giles is going on a one-man crusade against the forces of darkness. In which case, more power to him."

Cordelia – "You do remember the part about that being crazy, don't you?"

Xander – "Yeah but.."

Then he sighed.

Xander – "Let's go rescue him."

O-O-O-O

Scene – the vampire's warehouse.

Drusilla was standing to the side with a perplexed look as Angelus and Spike quarreled about recent events.

Spike – "She's going to kill you."

Angel, shaking his head – "No. She won't. You see, I started with the white hat she's least closest to. Then I'll kill someone else. Maybe Cordelia. I never picked up a lot of bonding between them. Then I'll kill someone else and another someone else until there's no one else left except me. Sure, she'll be sour at me for a while but I can ride through that."

Spike – "You.. You really have no idea what you're doing, do you? It's obvious that she doesn't think like that. You killed her friend so she will kill you. It's simple. It's as primal as you can get it, which is what she is when you boil it down. The second you make a move on her friends, the axe will come down."

Angel – "No. She's not simple. She's mine."

Spike, pointing a finger at Angel in anger – "You stupid ponce, you're playing with fire."

Then the table burst into flames as a poorly made petrol bomb hit it.

Drusilla squealed and the vampires backed away from the quickly spreading fire.

Out of apparently nowhere, an arrow thudded into Angel's shoulder, a painful surprise for him.

As Angel pulled the arrow out, Giles wafted in through the flames by the table and swung at him with a wooden baseball bat, the end lit on fire. The bat hit Angel across the face, almost knocking him over and getting a laugh out of Spike.

Still with the advantage, Giles beat down Angel, putting the boot in at one point.

Drusilla moved to help her Sire but Spike held her by forearm, stopping her.

Spike – "Not by the rules, ducks. You're only allowed into the ring if he tags you."

To Spike's disappointment, Angel gained the advantage in the fight, grabbing the bat and then pulling it straight out of Giles' hands. He quickly rapped Giles once in the forehead with the burning end and Giles fell back, holding his face where it had been hit with hot, blinding cinders.

Seeing that the flames were spreading across the room, Angelus sighed at the loss of real estate.

Angel – "Great. That's just great. Now I'm going to have to find somewhere else to live. I guess there's nothing more to do than to kill you for this."

Angel carelessly tossed the bat aside and his face contorted in confusion when he heard it caught in mid-air by someone.

He blocked with his arm just in time as Buffy brought the flaming bat down towards his head. The sheer force of the attack splintered the bat and knocked him sideways across the floor.

Angel, glaring at her as he pulled a large splinter out of his arm – "Buffy! That hurt and not in a good way."

Buffy had her game face on and her teeth were looking extra pointy as she bared them ferally at Angelus.

Angel, fatherly sounding – "Buffy. You will stop right this instant!"

Buffy growled but didn't say anything.

Angel smiled and walked up to her. Then Buffy smashed a Victorian style chair over him, ruining a perfectly good antique. She didn't follow through with the attack though and he smiled from the ground.

Angel, getting up – "Your will is weakening. I can tell."

Buffy growled a little more as Angel approached her again.

Buffy, pushing Angel away – "Mine."

Angel tilted his head and looked over to Giles who she seemed intent on protecting.

Angel, shrugging – "Fine. Keep him if you want. But he is kinda catching on fire."

Buffy gasped and her head snapped around to Giles. The first thing she noticed was that he wasn't on fire. The second thing she noticed was Angel had kicked her in the back of the head with a laugh.

It stunned her and by the time her senses came back, the room had more fire in it than she remembered it having. On the edges of her hearing, she could hear the other vampires running away and Spike's wheelchair squeaking as he was pushed away.

Giles was still out of it so Buffy picked him up and shook him a little. He woke up enough to half-walk and Buffy supported him from under his shoulder. A burning beam fell down from the ceiling, narrowly missing both of them.

Buffy's vampire half was starting to get a little freaked out. Fire and vampires really didn't mix and this place was turning into a death trap.

Buffy – "Come on! Move it!"

Giles moved it a little and Buffy pushed him a lot more. They came to a wooden door and Buffy kicked it out. Once outside, Giles pushed at Buffy and Buffy just let him drop to the ground.

Giles – "Piss off! I didn't ask for your help."

Buffy picked him up with a growl and tossed him across the pavement.

Buffy – "You didn't ask for it but you got it anyway! What do you think you were trying to do? Get yourself killed!"

Giles – "I was trying to do what you can't! Kill that.. Thing!"

Buffy – "Don't you get it? You can't die. Without you, I'll turn into one of them! I need you. You're the only thing stopping me from going completely evil."

Giles – "Fat lot of good that's done. You can't even do your job!"

Buffy growled and picked Giles up again, this time not throwing him but holding him to snarl in his face.

B – "I WILL kill him. For you, I'll kill him. For what he did to Jenny, I'll tear his heart out."

Giles pushed her away and fell back down onto the pavement again.

Giles – "You can say the words but they don't mean anything. You already chose your side."

Buffy, standing back a bit – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Giles – "You're a vampire, you stupid trollop."

Buffy – "You-You think I chose this? That I wanted to be like this?"

Giles – "You drank his blood. You tell me!"

Buffy, a little whiny – "I didn't have a choice! It-it happened so fast."

Giles, chuckling without humor – "There's always a choice and you took it. How do you accidentally swallow another person's blood? You don't! Tell me, how did he wrap it up for you? Did he promise to show you the world? That if you drank then you could truly be together forever?"

Buffy roared and slammed a fist down on Giles, knocking him out cold.

Willow, screaming - "BUFFY!"

Buffy turned and Willow, Xander and Cordelia running up to them.

Buffy, sarcastically – "Yeah. Great timing, guys."

Willow, holding Giles on the ground – "What do you do that for?"

Buffy fumed a little then just spun on her heel and stormed off.

Willow, to Xander and Cordelia – "Isn't one of you going to go after her?"

Cordelia – "After what she just did to Giles? I don't think so."

Xander, nodding in agreement with Cordelia – "What she said."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Giles' apartment.

Once Giles woke back up, Cordelia offered to drive him to the hospital but he had her just drive him home. He didn't feel up to driving his own car home and walking was out of the question. He was more likely to sleep in the gutter than walk home with the way he felt.

He opened the door, tearing the yellow police tape off as he did. Some part of him that wouldn't shut up wondered if there would be a chalk outline on his bed upstairs.

He would never know until tomorrow. Tonight, he would be sleeping on the couch.

As he wandered in, he looked up into the darkness and the nothingness of upstairs. It was as if there was a black hole in the room. He couldn't see it but he could feel it, pulling him down into it. Pulling him down into its oblivion.

Then Giles got pulled to the side and slammed into the wall, face first.

Giles – "Ow?"

Angelus, holding Giles' arm behind his back – "Hey British. Forgot about me already?"

Giles, gritting his teeth – "Don't you ever just give it a rest?"

It was too late to call out for help. The children had already driven away before he had even opened the door.

Angelus, gritting his own teeth but with glee not pain – "I want you to invite my friends in. Call out to them."

Giles – "Go to hell."

Angelus – "You're going to die anyway. What's it matter if there's an audience?"

Giles – "Oh. In that case. Go to hell."

Angelus twisted his arm a little more and chuckled.

Angel – "I could just break the arm. You've got more than one."

Giles – "Just do it. Kill me. Get it over with."

Angel – "Aww, Rupert. I know I hurt you but that's just the man I am. Now invite them in so we can get this show on the road."

Giles – "No."

Angel – "That's not inviting that all. Go on. Do it. It's really not that hard."

Giles - "Fine. Come in! Now about killing me?"

Jenny Calendar – "Don't be so eager, lover. Waiting is half the fun."

Giles looked on in horror as the woman he loved smiled with an evil glint in her eye.

Giles, falling to his knees – "No. Not that! Anything but that."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next Chapter.


	13. 4c Swallow the light

O-O-O-O

It seemed like only five minutes later and the vampires had gotten themselves a new nest.

One of the attractive qualities of Sunnydale was convenience in real estate, not only for vampires but for the human population too.

This new warehouse lacked class but that tends to happen after people burn all your possessions. This also meant that the moving-in time was dramatically cut down.

Angelus had basically spat in the corner, claimed the warehouse as his own and then took Drusilla out to get a snack, leaving Spike alone in the musty, boring warehouse.

Spike sighed and felt sorry about his lot.

He looked around. It looked to be a warehouse where they constructed furniture like some sort of Sunnydale equivalent to Ikea.

Spike groaned.

All the furniture and the walls were made out of wood. This place would burn up just like the last one if the librarian attacked again. Why couldn't Angelus pick a nest that was made out of stone? Like a good crypt or a cave? Something more traditional.

Then Spike shut up completely and wheeled his wheelchair backwards into some nice dark shadows.

Someone was here and they were sneaking. If he listened carefully enough, he could just about… get pushed out of the shadows!

Spike, outraged – "Hey!"

When he spun his wheelchair around to confront the prankster, his anger gave way to fear. A cold, paralysing fear. The fact that Buffy had her human face on didn't help him much at all.

Spike, after gulping noticeably – "Buffy. A-Angelus isn't here right now. I can take a message."

Before Spike could roll away, Buffy's foot came between his feet onto the footrest on the wheelchair, holding it in place.

Buffy, smirking – "I wonder. You can't move below the waist but do you still feel below the waist?"

Buffy lifted her foot off the footrest and kicked him in the shins, making him cringe in pain.

Buffy – "I guess so."

Spike, getting angry with his game face on – "What do you want?"

Buffy, pouting – "Nuh uh. Nice face, please. Or this could get very painful."

Buffy showed him what she meant by kicking him in the groin and in doing so, propelling him backwards in the wheelchair until it hit the far wall.

Buffy, laughing – "Wheelchairs are fun. I should get one too."

Spike growled but Buffy trapped the wheelchair again with her foot on the footrest.

Spike – "That could be arranged. What do you really want?"

Buffy, all honey and dewdrops – "Nice face."

Spike rolled his eyes and shook his game face off. Then he gave Buffy a pissed off "happy now?" look.

Buffy purred and straddled Spikes knees in probably what was probably a very uncomfortable position for anyone who needed blood circulation but it didn't seem to bother Buffy.

Buffy, playing nice – "Where's Angel?"

Spike, snappy – "Like I said. He's out."

Buffy pouted again and somehow that was the scariest thing Spike had seen all day.

Buffy – "So you're not expecting him back any time soon?"

The way she asked that, it was as if she wanted Angel to stay out a long time. Spike shook his head and she giggled a little girl laugh.

Buffy – "So you and me can have some fun then?"

Spike, not knowing what to say – "Um, uh, pardon?"

Buffy – "Come on, Spike. You owe me one."

Spike – "I owe you? I owe you for what!"

Buffy, stroking his shirt – "Don't you remember? Everyone was there, looking for Angel. You were in the shadows. I saw you but I didn't say anything."

Spike, gulping again – "Uh. Yeah. About that. Why did you do that? I still can't figure out."

Buffy, gently touching his mouth – "Maybe it's because I wanted something from you. Something Angel can't give me."

Spike wasn't really sure what was going on here but he reasoned that he should just go with the flow. Actually trying to understand it was too much hard work.

Spike – "Okay. And what's that?"

Buffy closed her eyes and had one of her hands clench up and down her shirt in an act of self-groping. Her other hand was doing a similar act of groping on Spike who had considerably less gropability but it sure got Spike's attention.

Buffy, still with her eyes closed – "Sometimes, when I'm along in my room, I can't sleep. I keep thinking of you and when we used to fight. I can't help but wonder what would happen if I lost to you, if you beat me down and, ugh, bit into me."

Buffy's game face turned on and she bit deep into own wrist with a moan of ecstasy.

Spike watched with his mouth hanging open.

Was this girl for real?

He'd seen a lot of weird things since becoming a vampire but this was starting to top the list. Vampires were not supposed to get off from biting themselves. Not even the really crazy ones like Drusilla.

After an amount of time that was becoming increasingly unbearable for Spike, Buffy stopped biting herself and opened her eyes. Then she offered her wrist to Spike.

Buffy, with blood smeared over her mouth – "You want some?"

Spike thought about it for a second then shrugged slightly and took her wrist. If that's what the lady liked then he'd try it at least once.

Strangely enough, Spike was enjoying this. He'd actually done this before but usually with a lot less clothes on and the blood never tasted like this before. Under her vampire, he could still taste the Slayer. She tasted like brick and mortar when you hit it face first, bitter and breathtaking.

While Spike was preoccupied with her wrist, Buffy took one of his hands and bit into his wrist, getting a surprised grunt from Spike.

As the blood oozed into her mouth, the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat ached as if burnt and she swallowed, hoping it would help. It didn't.

Unlike everyone else she had bitten, Spike's blood wasn't hot and beating. It was more like drinking cold battery acid. It was thick, cold and bitter. With normal blood, Buffy could feel her body absorbing it like a sponge but his blood sank into her stomach like heavy metal death, boiling as it went down.

Once it settled, deep inside her, something happened.

She saw flashes of light with her eyes closed. She hissed, bit deeper and drank more to keep up with Spike. The lights came closer, flashing and blinding and she shook her head to turn away from them.

But they collided with her mind like freight train.

She fell out of the chair and screamed!

Nightmares, death, pain and deep dark miseries. They all ran through her, shredding her soul, showing her snapshots of a life that wasn't her own.

She killed her mother. She killed hordes of people with resentment, insane anger and glee. She killed a slayer. Then another and even more people in between. The bodies piled up, all writhing in pain, like some sort of sadistic mosh pit tilted on its side.

The insane thoughts lulled and Buffy got off the ground and ran out of there. Once outside, they came back and she fell to the gravel outside and cried out once more.

Something was moving inside her mind like an electric eel and she couldn't shake it loose. It was taking her over from the inside and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

She shouldn't have come here. What had she done?

Then she threw up.

And then she passed out as the lights died within her mind.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Giles' apartment.

Giles was on his knees, held in place by Angelus as the corpse of Jenny Calendar walked into the room.

Giles, in emotional torment - "No. Not that! Anything but that."

Jenny, to Angelus – "That's not the warm welcome I was expecting."

Angelus, shrugging – "He IS British. They don't call it a welcome. They call it protocol."

Jenny chuckled at Angel's joke and picked up the champagne bottle sitting on the desk and started twisting it open.

Jenny, now sitting on the desk herself as she popped the cork – "It pains me to see you like this, Rupert. How about a drink? That might help take the edge off."

Angel – "Tell me, Jen. Did ol' Ripper ever get his wicked way with you?"

Jenny, shaking her head in disapproval - "He was such a gentleman."

Angel – "So he doesn't know about those cute little sounds you make?"

Jenny, raising an eyebrow – "I make little cute sounds?"

Angel – "Yeah, it's like an ohh, uhh, ohh, arhh."

Giles looked up at Angelus like he was a child.

Giles – "I guess some vampires never do grow up."

Jenny – "We're kind of like Peter Pan that way."

Angel knelt down to whisper in his ear. It was purely a psychological tactic since Jenny could still listen in from where she sat with her new vampire hearing.

Angelus – "These Kalderash women are so good. I don't know why I didn't turn one before. She's even better now that I've turned her. Tell me, Ripper. Ever gotten head from a vampire?"

Giles struggled fitfully and the two vampires in the room laughed.

Giles – "But how! How did this happen? You couldn't have turned her. I checked. I didn't find any bites on her."

This just got even more laughs from the vampires.

Giles – "How did you do it? Did you cover her neck with makeup?"

Angel – "Giles, you know that there are other places to bite people than just the neck, right? Now maybe if you had checked under her skirt you would have found the bite mark."

Jenny, still chuckling merrily along – "About that. It still kinda hurts. Kinda itchy, you know?"

Then Jenny stopped laughing and turned serious, getting off the desk and backing away from the door.

In walked Buffy, with her game face on and a large wooden stake that was a chair leg in a previous life.

Angel, as he let go of Giles – "Buffy."

Buffy turned to him and her eyelids softened but her game face didn't disappear.

Angel, to Jenny – "Watch him."

Jenny smiled and held Giles in place as Angel approached Buffy.

Angel took note of the blood on Buffy's shirt.

Angel – "Look at the mess you made. Been busy?"

Buffy shrugged and Angel put on a frown.

Angel – "What did I tell you about those things? Drop the stake."

Buffy dropped the stake and sighed in defeat. This made Angel smile.

Angel – "I knew you would see reason once I let you cool down."

Buffy, looking at Giles and Jenny – "What's going on?"

Angel – "We're expanding the family. I'm going to turn all your friends. What do you think of that?"

Buffy – "I-I don't know."

Angel, lifting her chin up so she would meet his gaze – "You like that idea. You want Giles to be one of us, don't you?

Buffy, smiling slightly – "Y-yes. That.. would be good."

Giles – "Buffy. Fight him. I know you can do it."

Buffy, sounding dead – "No. I can't. It's like you said. I drank his blood. I made a choice. The same choice you're going to make."

Giles – "I won't! You'll never turn me. Watchers are trained to die before being turned."

Angel – "It's strange. I remember hearing something like that about Slayers and look how that turned out. Trust me, Giles. We're going to turn you. It might take us a few days to break you but once we do, you're ours."

Jenny, eager to start – "Can I do it? Can I break him?"

Angel – "Sure. It's not like I want him as a childe. You can have him."

Buffy walked over to Giles and held his head in her hands. She looked down at him with those poisonous yellow eyes vampires have but she did it with something akin to sympathy.

Buffy – "Don't worry, Giles. It will hurt for a while but .. it will be over soon. You'll feel better. I promise."

Then she turned to Jenny with the same eyes.

Buffy – "I want to say sorry. For before. In your car."

Jenny, dismissively – "Don't worry about it. I really should have enjoyed it a whole lot more than I did."

Giles noticed something sliding out of Buffy's sleeve and looked to find a thin stake in her hands.

Buffy – "Well, I'm still sorry. For everything."

Then Buffy simply reached over and staked Jenny as if it was nothing. As if she was picking lint off of Jenny's shirt.

Even before Jenny had even turned to dust, Buffy pulled the stake back out and threw it behind her, faster than Giles' eye could follow.

In what looked like a split second, in lost time, Jenny was now dust and Angel had a long wooden skewer stuck in his shoulder.

Buffy, growling – "Dammit! How did I miss!"

Angel wrenched the stake out with a roar as his game face morphed on.

Angel, walking up to stake her – "Buffy! You've gone too far this time!"

Buffy didn't give him the chance. She somersaulted towards him and kicked both her feet out with in mid-air and into him, launching him through a window and out into the courtyard.

From Buffy's perspective, Angel was in shock, not even comprehending what had just happened. Now was the best time to finish him off so she picked up the larger stake she dropped earlier and moved out front to finish him off.

That was when she found a large round metal lawn table flying her way. Frankly, it was too large to dodge and with Buffy's momentum, she didn't have the footing to even try.

The rounded edge struck her square in the gut and pushed her back inside the doorway she had just come out of. The table smacked against the doorframe, luckily stopping the table from crushing into Buffy anymore.

Buffy got up, holding her gut and pushed the table away from the doorway. But when she limped outside, Angel was nowhere to be seen.

Obviously the lawn furniture was just a diversionary tactic so he could be away on his feet.

With a grunt of frustration, Buffy kicked the table and yelled out into the night.

Buffy – "ASSHOLE!"

O-O-O-O

Scene – furniture warehouse.

Angel roared and tossed a chair across the room, smashing it against the wall.

Angel – "Who would DARE!"

That's right. Two full exclamation points and a question mark. He's that angry.

Drusilla and Spike were off to the side, watching Angelus wreck the place. Spike seemed more than a little amused at the display.

Angel, pointing at Spike and Drusilla – "The nerve! She's worse than you two."

Dru, leaning over and asking Spike – "What does he mean by that?"

Angel – "That whore! She went behind my back and found a different master! But how! The only vampires even worth mentioning in town are us three."

Spike dropped the smile and put a blank face on. By the look Angel was now giving him, he acted too late. Angel's look, by the way, was a slack jawed look of the betrayed. It would be the same look Cordelia would give you if you wore the same shoes as her to the prom.

Angel – "You! YOU? What did you do!"

Spike, acting dumb with a shrug – "I don't know. What did I do?"

Angel lifted him out of the chair and sniffed him in disgust.

Angel – "You fed her your blood? You idiot! Why would you even do that? You could never control your own minions. There's no way you'll be able to control her."

Spike, giggling – "But hey, she let me feed off her too and now I'm feeling really bubbly. It's crazy."

This wasn't what Angel wanted to hear at all. He growled and threw the blonde across the room in the same direction he had thrown the chair. Spike hit the ground and rolled in a tangle of uncontrolled limbs.

Drusilla whimpered and moved to help her favorite childe but Angel grabbed her by the hair and pulled.

Angelus, with hate in his voice – "Leave him. You and me, Dru. We've got business."

He pulled her hair again and she fell off her feet. He dragged her, screaming, along into the make-shift bedroom.

Spike, crawling his way towards them – "Hey! You leave her out of this!"

Damn but Angel threw him a distance. Knowing the one-minute wonder, it'll all be over before Spikey even gets there.

Spike, feeling something odd – "Huh?"

He stopped crawling and looked down at his legs. With a little pain, he focused and his leg twitched.

Despite the situation, he boiled up with laughter and covered his mouth with his hands to hide it.

Spike, yelling a token effort – "Bastard! I'll, uh, I'll get you for this. Just see if I don't!"

Then he went back to looking at his legs.

Spike, quietly to himself – "Bloody hell."

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	14. 5a How I saved Xmas

O-O-O-O

Scene – A small, almost completely demolished house on the edge of town.

A huge red furry bloated, almost spherical, demon was pushed against the wall by Buffy as she tried to penetrate its absurdly thick hide with her spear.

Buffy – "Just die already!"

Xander came and hit it around the head with an axe. It annoyed the demon just enough to smack him away before going back to struggling with Buffy.

Buffy, to the fallen Xander – "Hey! I said I got it!"

Then the giant demon smashed a meaty fist through the spear, breaking it in half. With the spear broken, Buffy fell towards it and it brought its claw back up, tossing her up and through the air as if she were a pillow.

Cordelia shot a bolt at it from her crossbow and it bounced off its hide as it waddled forth to crush her.

Cordelia wailed a little and threw the crossbow at it then ran off, helping Xander up as she did. A ball on a chain from Willow hit it on the back of the head and it quickly forgot Cordelia to chase down the redhead.

Willow backpedaled away from the big red demon and Giles thrust into its side with a broadsword. He tried to disembowel it in the same move but its flank was just too thick.

It batted away the sword then brought a set of claws down on Giles, raking through his jacket and drawing lines of blood across his vest.

Willow gasped – "Giles!"

The demon bellowed with a raucous laughter and it moved in to finish Giles off. It brought a mighty bulbous clawed hand up and then smashed it down on Giles. But at the last second, Giles had managed to fight through the pain and brought the tip of his broadsword up against the blow.

It went straight through the demons overly large hand and out the other side. The demon pulled its hand back in pain and tore the sword straight out of Giles' grip. Then it wrenched the sword out and thick goopy grey ichors sprayed out from both sides of the wound. After a mere two seconds, the bleeding had stopped like a hose being turned off and the gaping wound in its hand sealed up. After another two seconds, there was no trace of Giles' attack at all.

The demon laughed again and Giles nodded in understanding.

Giles – "So that's why you keep laughing."

Then Giles and the jolly red demon turned to a new sound. It was Buffy, in game face and holding a buzzing chainsaw.

Buffy, smiling – "Now all I need is a hockey mask."

Giles wasn't so sure about this.

Giles – "Uh. Buffy. I'm not sure that's a good idea."

But Buffy didn't listen and charged forwards with the chainsaw.

The demon swiped at her and after a loud gnawing sound it was found with one less arm.

It screamed and demon juice shot out of its shoulder stump like a fire hydrant, knocking Giles over.

Then Buffy was kneeling on its back, the chainsaw imbedded deep into its spine. Fresh geysers of murk erupted out from the aggravated wound. It spun to shake her off but all that accomplished was spraying more of its vital essence around the room. Buffy kept up the attack and the demon slowly began to deflate and loose power. It's screaming ceased and it sank down onto the floor as a giant sack of loose skin and bones.

Buffy, covered in grimy guts, got off the demon and chuckled as she turned the chainsaw off.

Buffy, to Xander - "See. I told you I got it."

Xander, also covered in grey murk – "You did it, Buffy. You killed Santa. And it's not even December."

Buffy, chuckling – "Eh. I always like to get Christmas shopping in early."

While she laughed, she looked around and found the entire room to be covered in the same stuff she was covered in, particularly her friends.

From under some debris, there was a groan and it moved aside to show Oz. Some of the house had fallen down on him during the fight.

Willow, checking him out with obvious worry – "Are you okay?"

Oz, being the only one not covered in grime – "I think I'm fine."

Willow – "Are you sure? You look a little rattled. Maybe you've got a concussion."

Oz - "No. I don't think so. I just always feel a little nervous with combat. It's a me thing. Um, what did I miss?"

Buffy – "Not much. Although, Giles, that move you did was, um , smashing."

Giles laughed at her poor attempt at British and then held his chest tightly.

Giles, with a wince of pain – "Buffy, you'll have to dismember it."

Buffy, whining – "Aww. But I killed it. Why do I have to do the boring stuff like dismembering it too? Can't we just torch the house?"

Giles, shaking his head – "No. We've got to dismember it and then burn it. Both or none at all. Besides, it's about time you learnt how to dismember. I won't always be here to do it for you."

Cordelia – "And Buffy, he's got his side torn open. He should like, I dunno, go see a doctor or something."

Giles, looking down at his jacket – "She has a point. This is starting to hurt."

Xander, looking at Cordelia – "Wow. Was that compassion? From Queen Cordelia? Any day now I bet she'll have a sensitivity training center named after her."

Cordelia, glaring at him – "Hey. That could happen."

Buffy started the chainsaw up again and sighed.

Buffy – "Okay. Let's do this. Willow, you hold the arms. Cordelia, you hold the legs."

Cordelia – "Why me?"

Buffy – "Because you didn't swatted across the room like Xander and you didn't have the house fall on you like Oz. Now get over here and hold it still."

Cordelia and Willow both grimaced but got to work as Buffy brought the chainsaw down to cut it in half. Despite all the goop around the room, the chainsaw still found something squishy so spray up into their faces.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Half an hour or so later.

The Scoobies walked into the library. Almost all of them were tired and carrying heavy weapons. They had since cleaned most of the grey goop off but bits and pieces still clung to their clothing.

Cordelia, smelling her hair instead of carrying weapons – "Eww. I hope this stuff washes out."

Buffy, waiting for Giles to unlock the weapons locker - "Now I totally get why Jason wears a hockey mask. It's so stop the gore sticking to his face."

Xander – "You're thinking of Leather-face. He's the one who uses the chainsaw."

Buffy – "Oh, you're right. He's the one who wears other people's faces over his face, isn't he? That works too, I guess."

Willow shook her head – "No. Wait. That's Hannibal lector."

Oz – "Actually Hannibal Lector only wore someone else's face once. He used their face as a disguise to escape."

Willow, frowning – "Oh, so .. Buffalo Bill?"

Cordelia – "Who's Buffalo Bill?"

Buffy – "He's the other psycho in Silence of the lambs. The one who wore other peoples skin like a suit. Remember, it puts the lotion on its skin? That guy."

Cordelia, nodding – "Oh. Yeah. I remember now."

Willow – "So who's Leatherface?"

Xander – "He's from the Texas chainsaw massacre."

Willow – "Ahh. Never saw that."

"Whud are you people talking about?"

Everyone stopped and turned towards the new voice. It was definitely feminine in persuasion with an exotic, clunky accent.

Buffy's eyes widened and she couldn't help but smile.

Buffy – "Kendra! When did you get in?"

Kendra, looking the Scoobies over – "I just got in right now. What happened?"

Xander – "Patrol got a little messier than normal."

Oz, quietly to Willow – "Who's, um?"

Willow, out loud – "Oh! You don't know her. This is Kendra. The, uh, the other Slayer."

Oz thought about this for a second.

Oz – "That's cool."

Buffy – "Firstly, Welcome back to the sunshine state. Secondly, and don't take this the wrong way but what are you doing here? Wait. Don't tell me. You were sent to stop some very dark power from rising in Sunnydale."

Kendra blinked in surprise. Not her usual face at all.

Kendra – "No one told you?"

There was a long pregnant pause.

Kendra – "No one told you about da Elder gods?"

There was another pause here.

Buffy, with an oblivious smile – "Tell you what. Let's just put the weapons away and then you can tell us all about it."

Most of the other scoobies went on to unloading their weapons while Giles and Willow shared worried glances between themselves.

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later.

Buffy – "So what's the monster of the week, this week?"

Giles – "If I'm not mistaken, Kendra said it was an Elder God."

Kendra – "Two. Two Elder gods."

Giles groaned and sat down in a chair, covering his face with his hands.

Buffy frowned at Giles' reaction.

Buffy – "So I'm guessing a chainsaw won't cut it this time?"

Giles, taking his hands away from his face – "No. Definitely not."

Buffy – "So what's the skinny? Are they big or fast or what?"

Giles – "Elder… God… Doesn't ring a bell at all? By the way, that's in English. It refers to a god that is older than other gods. It's in the same vein as super-man."

Buffy nodding, understanding this as she took her blue glasses off to try and clean them a little in a Giles like fashion.

Xander – "Wait. You mean like Zeus?"

Giles – "No. Not like Zeus. Zeus was a god. Elder gods are more like the titans that preceded his reign but only more so. They're the very stuff of nightmares given form and thought to have been vanquished from this realm eons ago. However, some rest beyond the boundaries of our realm, in dimensions without width and reason, bubble dimensions, pocket dimensions and parasitic dimensions. They wait for the day when they can creep their way through the holes in the fabric of time and space and return to rule again. Which begs the question why Kendra would be here to fight two of them. As far as I know, the hellmouth hasn't been opened so there shouldn't be any possible way we could have two in town."

Kendra – "The coven in Devon were very insistent. After their seer saw them, she fell into a coma which they haven't been able to wake her from."

Giles nodded in a so-so way.

Giles – "That's happened a few times to her before. She'll wake up in a week. Although, every other time, it did precede a terrible event."

Kendra – "Which is why I am here. To prevent dat."

Buffy – "So these things are really really bad? So what do they look like?"

Giles – "Buffy, I believe you'll know if you seen one. Few have looked upon an Elder and lived with their sanity."

Buffy – "So they're ugly then? Great. But what about size? Shape? Abilities?"

Giles, unsure of himself – "I um.. Well, they.. have powers to distort space and time. We know that already and um… They're big. They're very big."

Buffy – "Like how big?"

Giles – "Very very big."

Buffy – "Like as big as Santa?"

Kendra, giving Buffy a strange look – "Excuse me?"

Giles – "No. Much bigger than him."

Buffy – "Like as big as van?"

Giles, shaking his head – "No. Very big. Very very big."

Buffy – "So we're talking as big as a house?"

Giles sighed and shook his head more.

Buffy – "Bigger? How about a warehouse?"

Giles – "Possibly that big."

Buffy – "Okay. And what do they eat?"

Giles paused and looked at Kendra, who shrugged.

Giles – "People, I presume. Yes, there have been several accounts of them eating people."

Buffy – "So we've got not only one but two of this elder God things in Sunnydale? They're both about as big as a warehouse and they eat people? So where are they?"

Giles – "Pardon?"

Now it was Buffy's turn to sigh.

Buffy – "Where are they? We just went on patrol and the only demon we saw was the same one we just killed. If there were two of these things going around eating people, I think we would have spotted them by now. Because of the running and the screaming."

Oz – "Point."

Giles – "Oh. I see what you mean. Well, Elder gods generally can't manifest directly into our dimension. At least, not without help. The usual Elder haunting works like this. They open small windows into our world and then reach out with the powers of their minds and infect members of the human population to help them with the transition into our world. The human targets, over time, become infected with demonic energies until they change and become the Elder's willing servants."

Buffy – "So they're not like Godzilla on a rampage? They're more like puppet masters?"

Giles – "Until such time as they have enough sacrifices and then they will have the energy to emerge into our world to become the proverbial Godzilla."

Willow – "So we have to find the servants first and then we can find the Elder god?"

Giles nodded.

Xander – "But do we have to wait until the servants are all infected to the dark side? Can't we just find the Elder first and then kill it. We'd pretty much be saving their lives if we did."

Kendra shook her head.

Kendra – "They're already turned. The council can tell because the Elder's presence is growing more and more into our world. Which means sacrifices must be being made to them."

Buffy – "Well, that sucks. So how do we find the servants? What do we look for? Beady eyes?"

Giles – "There are signs to look for. Mood swings, changes in normal behaviour, lack of a social life, disturbed sleeping habits, a sudden interest in the occult."

Xander – "You know, you just described all of us here."

Cordelia hit him in the arm.

Xander – "Hey, ow! I got clawed there."

Cordelia – "That doesn't describe me at all."

Xander – "Oh yeah. You're right. You sleep perfectly soundly every night."

Kendra – "Also, Elder generally only target people who have wealth or have mental illness."

Xander – "Cordelia again! On both counts."

This time, Xander scooted out of arms reach from his girlfriend.

Giles – "I know for a fact that is true. Some time ago, a branch of a respected watchers family went into solitude. Some months went by until news of murders reached the councils ears and they investigated. They sent in the Slayer. After that, they sent in a forensic team."

There was a pause as everyone waited for Giles to finish the story.

Giles – "Oh, I'm sorry. That was the end of the story. No one knows what happened to the Slayer but as a new one was called and the forensic team found evidence of the family going mad as if an Elder God had been controlling them, it was assumed that she did her duty by destroying the Elder but died in the process."

Buffy – "I don't like that story."

Xander – "Me neither. It lacked themes."

Cordelia – "So what are we supposed to do? Just find every crazy rich person in Sunnydale and poke around in their basement for pan-dimensional wackiness?"

Buffy – "Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. We've all seen some strange things in basements."

Cordelia, snorting – "Yeah. Like Xander's bedroom."

Buffy - "No. I'm serious. Mantis ladies egg nest, the Bezoar, Frankenstein experiments. All in basements. Hey, we should check their attics and air vents too. Invisible girl lived in the air vents."

Willow – "We don't need to check every building. Tomorrow we'll do some profiling. Sort of like what we did to find Oz, remember?"

Willow pointed to Oz and smiled towards Kendra – "This is Oz. He's my boyfriend."

Kendra frowned in confusion.

Kendra – "You profiled for a boyfriend? Dat's unusual? Isn't it?"

Willow – "No, you see there was a werewolf in town and we profiled likely suspects and it turned out that the werewolf was Oz, so like.. uh. Oh and Oz is a werewolf. You're okay with that, right?"

Kendra nodded slowly, as if only to please Willow.

Willow – "Yeah, so we kinda found out he was a werewolf before he actually killed anyone. So yay, profiling wins again."

Kendra nodded some more. This time, a little less strained.

Xander – "I thought we found out he was a werewolf because he turned into one in front of your eyes?"

Willow, frowning – "Yeah but we should still profile likely suspects. It could save on time."

Giles got up off the chair and said – "Yes, well, we shall have to do that later. You all go home and get a good nights sleep. I dare say that we will need it for the morrow. Besides, there are some matters I should speak with Kendra about."

Those that were in chairs, got out.

Buffy, to Kendra – "I know you don't like hugs so I would shake your hands except.. demon goo."

Buffy squished some goo in between her fingers to show what she meant.

Buffy – "So I'll leave you with a see-you-tomorrow."

Kendra nodded curtly.

Kendra, slightly forced – "See you tomorrow too."

The others gave some farewells and moved off as a group.

Once they were out of earshot, Kendra looked to Giles with a look of distaste.

Kendra – "That is .. disturbing."

Giles – "I know."

Kendra – "Buffy. She acts so normal. Not like a vampire at all."

Giles – "She's learnt to hide her vampire side but she slips on occasion and then you'll see all too well that she isn't Buffy at all. Talking of which, I gather that the council has been giving you special training?"

Kendra – "Yes sir."

Giles – "To deal with Buffy, in case the need arises?"

Kendra - "Yes sir."

Giles – "Well, I wouldn't count on the need to use it just yet but I don't mind saying, I feel a lot safer with you here."

Kendra frowned a little then let her face go back to its normal mask.

Kendra – "Yes sir."

Giles – "How are your accommodations? I take it you're staying with the watchers studying Buffy's physiology?"

Kendra – "No. I came here first. I wanted to see Buffy for myself."

Giles – "Well, you can sleep on my couch for tonight if you want. There's no need to wake any else up."

Kendra, smiling slightly – "I would appreciate that."

Giles – "Think nothing of it. Uh, you don't sleep walk, do you?"

Kendra – "No. Do you?"

Giles – "No but it always pays to check."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Library, the next day.

The sun shone down through the sky light and Buffy lounged in its glare. She had feet up on the table while she sat in a chair.

Next to her, Willow had her laptop out and was busy looking through recent police records, looking for anything suspicious. She quickly realized that she had to reevaluate her parameters for what suspicious was. This was Sunnydale after all.

Kendra and Giles were busy putting books away in the stacks. Buffy noted that Kendra seemed at ease in the library. Buffy guessed that books were her element.

Buffy – "It's nice that the council thought to give us some back up for this."

Willow, busy reading the screen – "Yeah. I guess so."

Buffy pulled down her blue shades and looked at Kendra over the top of them.

Buffy, quietly impressed – "Oh baby."

This distracted Willow, who turned around and spotted Buffy doing this.

Willow, carefully – "Buffy. What are you doing?"

Buffy – "Just looking."

Willow – "But aren't you supposed to keep those on? Otherwise you get hungry."

Buffy, smirked – "Oh, I'm not thinking about food right now."

Willow looked up at Kendra who was reaching up and putting books on a high shelf. Buffy whimpered a little and nibbled on her bottom lip in want.

Willow – "Y-You like her?"

Buffy shot an incredulous look at Willow.

Buffy – "Why not? She's hot. Come on, Will. Even you should be able to tell these things. She's just sooo hot. That skin, those eyes, that muscle tone."

Willow – "But I thought you liked meek, mild, soft, huggable girls."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Willow before going back to looking at Kendra.

Buffy – "You're not jealous, are you?"

Willow – "What! No. Of course not."

Buffy, looking over the top of her glasses at Willow – "Good. Because you've got nothing to be jealous of."

Willow, unsure how to react – "Umm. Thanks."

Buffy, looking back at Kendra – "I think you'll always be my favorite but I don't get to see Kendra everyday. So just let me have my fantasies for now, okay?"

Willow blinked at Buffy.

Buffy, sighing – "Too much information, right?"

Willow nodded.

Buffy – "Sorry."

Willow turned back to her laptop and tried to ignore the vampire voyeur.

Willow – "Ooh!"

Everyone turned her way.

Buffy – "You found something?"

Willow, smiling – "I found several something. Oh, ugh! That's gross."

Kendra and Giles approached the desk and stood behind Willow as Buffy stayed sitting.

Willow, reading the screen – "There's an open case about the abduction and mutilation of several people. The police are very eager to catch them. The coroner reports aren't very descriptive, they're not very professional, but the people all have parts removed. Uh, those parts."

Willow pointed at the screen, not wanting to speak them out loud.

Buffy, cringing as she leant over to look – "Eww. They stole their ovaries? You're right, Willow. That's puke worthy. I'm a little jaded on the blood and gore part of the job but even that makes me squeamish."

Kendra – "I tink we just got our first clue."

Giles – "Hold on, hold on. This isn't typical behavior for someone under an Elder's thrall. This could be unrelated."

Buffy – "Either way, I wouldn't mind taking the case of the psycho sexual mutilator. Who knows what they could be doing with the spare parts."

Willow – "Yeah. They could be making a Frankenstein creation like they were going to do with Cordelia's head."

Buffy – "Yeah but with only the parts from the inside. That would put a new twist on an old tale."

Kendra, shaking her head – "No. I tink this is what we are looking for."

Giles – "What makes you think that?"

Kendra, suddenly very unsure – "I-I don't know."

Buffy – "It's called feminine intuition, Kendra. I say we go with it."

Giles – "Perhaps but I find it unlikely that both Elder's servants would have the same modus operandi of stealing.. parts."

Kendra, frowning – "Mr Giles is right. We should be looking for clues of another murderer."

Buffy – "Is it unusual to have more than one in the same town or do they always move around in pairs?"

Giles, frowning – "Now that I think of it, that is very unusual. From what I understand, Elder are intensely solitary and competitive creatures. The chances of two appearing in the same place and at the same time are almost incalculably slim. I dare say that there is more than meets the eye here."

Willow – "I don't suppose there's a chance we could get them to fight each other, do you?"

Giles considered this.

Giles – "I couldn't say. I don't recall coming across anything regarding territorial behavior but it is possible."

Kendra, to Willow – "What else can you find?"

Willow looked back at her computer and looked through the case file.

Willow – "All the bodies were found on the east side of town.. Around Levin's street and the woods."

Buffy – "That's prime giant demon real estate. The police don't patrol there and there are a few empty mansions around there which would be big enough to hold a Godzilla or two."

Giles – "You might not be looking for a mansion. Some elder can warp the fabric of space in various ways. They can literally add space into a room to make it larger on the inside. Large enough to hold even their girth."

Buffy – "Like the Tardis on Doctor who?"

Giles blinked, surprised at Buffy's knowledge of British Sci-fi – "Yes. Just like the Tardis. But for obvious reasons, a mansion would be an ideal location. Particularly a mansion with a small family in."

Willow – "Ooh! Because there have been studies on the detrimental psychological effects of large amounts of empty rooms in the house you live in. And Elder's can manipulate the ill-minded easier than the healthy."

Giles – "Well, yes. That-that's correct. You must have read my mind."

Kendra – "Now that we have somewhere to start, we should go investigate that area."

Buffy looked up at Kendra, who was looking at her expectantly.

Buffy, dropping her legs off the table – "Oh. By we, you mean me and you? Uh, I've still got school for a few more hours. But you go and careful not to be caught by the truant officer."

Kendra frowned at this.

Giles – "I'll take her. You two will help anyone who comes in?"

Buffy, nodding – "Sure Giles. It will be our pleasure."

With that, Kendra and Giles left and Buffy looked over the top of her glasses as they did.

Buffy, whimpering a little – "Oh baby. That ass should be illegal."

O-O-O-O

In the streets, later that night, Xander, Willow and Buffy were walking along the east side of town.

Willow – "Reports indicated that the murders took place around this time, eight PM. So keep your eyes open."

Buffy, conversationally – "About Giles and Kendra. Should I be worried?"

Xander, joking – "Yes. Giles is seeing another Slayer now. You just have to accept it and move on."

Buffy – "No, I mean. You know."

Xander, shaking his head – "No. I'm afraid I don't."

Buffy – "Okay. You might not want to hear this Xander but Giles.. He's a man. Kendra.. is a girl. A hot girl."

Xander – "I will agree with that and I see where you're going. But firstly, both of them are too professional for anything more than a little hot and heavy intellectual intercourse."

Buffy, sadly – "Yeah but Giles, he just lost Jenny. He could be thinking strange things."

Xander, chuckling – "Like jumping a Slayer's bones? It didn't work when I was hyena boy and I don't think it will work for lovelorn Giles. If he tries, I'm sure Kendra can handle herself."

Willow – "And Giles wouldn't. He just wouldn't. He's not like that."

Buffy – "Yeah. You're right. Neither of them is like that. But I don't know. When I see them together, I get this creepy feeling coming off them like something isn't right."

Xander – "If you ask me, it's library fever. They've both got the bug."

Willow – "Maybe you just feel intimidated by her."

Buffy – "Hey, I'm not intimidated by her."

Willow, prying – "You don't compare yourself at all?"

Buffy mulled this over.

Buffy – "Okay. Maybe I'm a little intimidated. Cos she's..-"

Xander – "Bigger, stronger, taller, smarter and – "

Buffy – "Quiet."

Xander – "But I haven't even got to mentioning her –"

Buffy held her hand over his mouth and forcibly stopped him from talking.

Buffy, quietly – "Ssh. Someone's here. Someone is sneaking."

Buffy removed her hand from Xander's mouth and all three of them listened.

Willow – "I don't hear anything."

Buffy, whispering – "It's not what you hear but what you don't hear. My ears just tensed up. Something's wrong."

Indeed, there was a certain tenseness to be felt in the ears which didn't fit in with the scene.

Buffy crept forward and beckoned the others to follow.

They snuck to the mouth of an alleyway and Buffy stopped them. In the middle of the alleyway was what looked like a figure disposing of a body in a dumpster.

Xander brought out his radio and whispered into it.

Xander – "Giles. I think we've spotted them. We're on Filigree and Weavers. He's at the back of that posh restaurant, the one that sells the blue oyster special. Oh crap. He's seen us."

Xander broke off talking into the radio piece and tailed after Buffy who was already on the heels of the perpetrator.

As she ran past the dumpster, she got a whiff of fresh kill and her game face flashed on.

Buffy, as she ran – "You just had to make me run, didn't you?"

O-O-O-O

Close by, Giles sped along the road in his tiny car. Kendra held on for dear life, never knowing the car could take turns so well.

There were coming up to the scene when a figure wearing drab grays ran out of an alleyway and across the road. While they were watching them, another figure came out and got hit square on by Giles' car.

The new figure rolled over the top of the top of the car and Giles put the brakes on, putting the car into a spin.

The figure on the road didn't move and then it slowly got up to reveal its vampire visage.

Buffy growled then turned and continued her chase after the gray figure.

Xander and Willow came out of the alleyway, out of breath and stumbled across to the car.

Giles – "Get in. We'll head them off."

Both of the teenagers huffed and puffed and tried their best to squeeze into the back seats.

Xander – "Giles, One of these days we need to get you a grown up's car. This clown car is getting old."

O-O-O-O

Less than a minute later and Giles slammed on the brakes.

In front of the car stood Buffy, her arms folded and an annoyed look on her humanized face.

They all got out and Kendra confronted Buffy.

Kendra – "You let him go?"

Buffy – "No. I didn't let him go. I tracked him to there."

She pointed a thumb back at the mansion behind her. Lightning chose that time to strike, illuminating the estate with ominous backlighting.

Kendra – "What makes you think he's in there?"

Lightning struck the same place twice, illuminating the house again. Yes, lightning can hit the same place twice and quite often will. To say different was originally a white lie used to settle people's nerves after they've just gone through a traumatic event. But to be fair, how many people do you know who have actually been hit by lightning more than once? It's a remarkably uncommon event even for people who walk up metal ladders and fix electrical wiring in the rain.

Buffy – "They were fast but they can't outrun my nose."

Buffy tapped her nose and Kendra frowned.

Kendra – "Pardon me?"

Buffy – "You get that I'm a vampire, right? Well, we're like sharks. We can track smells for miles. He's spilt blood over himself so it was easy."

Xander – "I think you mean bloodhounds."

Buffy, glaring at Xander – "No. I think you'll find it is sharks. I'm not a dog."

Giles, to Buffy – "Are you sure this is where he ran to?"

Buffy, nodding – "The place smells of .. um. I don't actually know what it smells of. But it smells wrong."

Giles – "Very well. We shall investigate it then. But I warn you, all of you, should you find the Elder inside, run. We're not prepared to fight one yet. At this point in time, we're just after its servants."

Buffy – "I'm thinking we go inside while Giles and Kendra stay outside in case he runs out that way.

Kendra – "Why should I stay outside?"

Buffy – "Because we need someone outside that can handle them. They're fast and so they're probably strong too. And I'm going inside because I'm more suited to hunting humans."

Kendra, unimpressed with that logic – "Because you're a vampire?"

Buffy, nodding – "That's right. If I focus, I can hear heartbeats through walls. That means he'll have a hard time hiding from me."

Giles – "Perhaps I don't need to say this but if you can, try to take him alive. There might be something we could do for him once the Elder's influence is removed. Oh and if there is even a hint of the Elder inside, don't even try to get a peek of what it looks like. An Elder's effects on sanity are well documented and we should keep our exposure to a minimum."

Willow – "After everything else we've seen in Sunnydale, I think we can handle this."

Xander – "Yeah. We turned crazy years ago."

Kendra – "Dat explains a few tings."

Xander, smiling at the Jamaican – "Hey, a joke from the shy slayer. I'm impressed."

Kendra suddenly became very shy towards him again.

Buffy sighed and pulled Xander away.

Buffy – "You remember what I told you about talking to her."

Xander, being dragged towards the mansion – "What? She talked first."

Willow sighed and followed the squabbling pair towards the house.

O-O-O-O

By the time they reached the mansion, they had quieted down as they didn't want to give away their position.

The front door was open so they let themselves in.

Xander, whispering to Buffy – "Do you hear him?"

Buffy, irritated – "Ssh."

Then she closed her eyes, focused and the sounds of the house slowly gave up their secrets to her. Boarded up windows rattled in the wind and the roof creaked in the way roofs do as they cool at night. The mansion was abandoned long ago and..

Buffy sniffed.

She smelt alcohol, cigarettes and illicit substances. Even yummier, she smelt teen spirit. Kids had come here to fool around. More recently, that rebellious streak had turned into something darker, into something tainted with the blood of countless victims, of an endless thirst for lives and body parts and blood and –

Buffy's eyes shot open.

Buffy – "I hear him. This way."

The gray figure burst out of the wardrobe it was hiding in and ran down the main hallway. Buffy gave chase, followed yet again by Xander and Willow.

At the end of the hall, the figure took a right and this time it looked like Buffy would catch him.

She turned right, as did Xander and Willow who were actually doing a good job at keeping up.

They kept running down the new hallway until, inexplicably, the gray figure disappeared from sight.

Buffy and the others slowed a little but kept running in that direction, even if it was at a much slower pace.

Xander – "What? Where'd he go?"

Then something strange and almost indescribable happened. The hallway they were in branched out like a fist opening up into fingers. The air turned red with a bloody mist that made Buffy's eyes roll back into the back her head.

She lost control of her limbs and barely felt the floor as she thudded against it.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	15. 5b Gently bent

O-O-O-O

Authors notes – Yes, I ripped the storyline off from Red Dwarf. I know how sad I am.

O-O-O-O

When Buffy's head cleared she found herself on the floor with Willow having fallen over her.

Xander had somehow managed to stay upright but was leaning against the wall as if he couldn't balance properly.

Xander – "That was different. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll try not to throw up."

Willow got up off of Buffy and apologized.

Buffy – "Don't worry about it. Uh, where's the loon go?"

Xander – "I don't know. He was there one minute and gone the next. Then that thing happened. What was that?"

Willow – "I think we hit some sort of tessaract."

Buffy – "A tessawhat?"

Willow – "A tessaract. Okay, it's not really a tessaract. It's just what they call tessaracts."

Buffy – "Uh huh. That explains it."

Willow – "Okay. Imagine a four dimensional entity trying to manipulate three dimensional space. You get all sort of weird distortions. Straight lines become curved, even folding in on themselves at the origin of effect to accommodate the alien geometry."

Buffy gave Xander a look, who gave her one back.

Xander – "In your own time, Willow."

Willow, sighing – "Remember how Giles was saying how the Elder can play with space?"

Buffy, nodding – "To make a Tardis. I remember."

Willow – "Well. It's kind of like that. I think the Elder just hit us with a rhombus to disorientate us and let his minion get away."

Buffy sighed as she got up.

Buffy – "They can do that? That's just not playing fair."

Xander – "So what do we do? Run after them again?"

Buffy listened intently for a few seconds then sighed.

Buffy – "Can't hear anything. I think they got away. Radio Giles."

Xander, into the radio – "Hey Giles. We lost him. Anything out your end? Over."

They waited patiently for a reply. When they didn't get one, they frowned but tried not to jump to any conclusions.

Xander, into the radio again. – "Giles? I hope you're not doing anything I wouldn't be doing. Over."

They waited, giving each other worried glances.

Willow – "This can't be good."

Buffy, running back out front – "Come on!"

Xander and Willow grumbled a little and ran after the super powered running machine.

O-O-O-O

Out front, Kendra and Giles were waiting when a blonde haired boy walked casually out the front door like he owned the place. Then he froze and looked at Kendra and Giles in a mixture of confusion and wariness.

Kendra, approaching him – "He must be da servant. Mr. Giles, you stay back."

Boy, dumbstruck – "I'm the who now?"

Kendra attacked with one-two punch which the boy nimbly dodged and backed away from.

Boy – "Hey, I don't know who you are but I'm not in the habit of beating up girls."

Kendra – "Too bad."

Then Kendra swung out with a roundhouse kick that knocked the boys' sunglasses off and made him fall to the ground, stunned.

Kendra, smiling - "Too easy."

Then the boy got back up and growled at her with a vampire's visage on.

Vampire, impressed with Kendra – "That actually hurt. A lot! How did you do that?"

Kendra didn't answer, instead she moved in with another roundhouse. However, the vampire anticipated the attack and rushed her in the middle of her roundhouse spin. He pulled back on her and used the centrifugal force to throw her up in a disorganized tangle against the wall of the house. She hit the wall about seven feet up, sideways.

The vampire winced, uncharacteristically for a vampire.

Vampire, still wincing as he walked over to her – "Ooh. Sorry. I think I went a little overboard."

As he approached her, she lashed out with a kick that hit him on the bottom of the jaw so hard that his feet got lifted off the grass.

He fell back to ground, dazed and holding his jaw. Then Giles came up and started beating him around the head with a baseball bat he had kept handy for precisely this reason.

After the first hit, the vampire huddled up into a ball and Giles kept on beating him as he still had some fight in him.

Then there was a flash with the sound of a CHOMP and Giles' baseball bat was cut in half and the vampire on the ground had a sword pointed towards Giles.

Vampire, getting up off the ground – "Who the hell are you people? And why did you just attack me like that?"

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Xander and Willow ran through the front doorway and all but ran into the four people waiting outside.

Both groups stared at each other for a moment and then the four strangers all brought swords from somewhere.

Xander, putting up his hands as if he had a gun pointed at him – "Does anyone else suddenly feel very inadequate?"

O-O-O-O

Kendra and Giles studied the blonde vampire, whose face had turned back to normal by now.

He was short, cute, had a lantern jaw and Kendra could tell that he was extremely muscled under his clothes. He had a sword, which was unusual enough but even more puzzling was that he wasn't in a hurry to use it. Most vampires tended to be a kill first, never ask questions type.

Kendra – "Who are you?"

Vampire – "I asked you first."

Kendra – "And now I'm asking you."

Vampire – "Alright. I'm Buddy, the Slayer."

Giles and Kendra looked at each other for a moment then looked back at Buddy.

Kendra – "Pluhze. I'm not dat stupid."

O-O-O-O

Buffy – "I'm Buffy, the vampire Slayer."

Xander – "And we're her friends."

When they didn't get a response, Xander added "Or not as the case may be."

A short raven-haired girl chuckled and spoke.

Girl – "If you're going to lie to us, you should at least get your stories straight. Firstly, vampire Slayers are all guys."

O-O-O-O

Buddy – "What do you mean Slayer's are all girls?"

Giles - "I assure you, it's true. Now, Kendra, could you watch him while I get something from my car."

Kendra nodded wordlessly and kept studying Buddy. There was something a little odd about him.

Buddy, to Kendra – "Do you believe that guy? Slayers are girls. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Kendra – "No, it's not. I'm a Slayer."

Buddy looked at Kendra blankly then cracked up, leaning on his sword as he did.

Kendra, offended – "It's not funny."

Buddy – "Yes, it is."

Kendra – "Then how do you think I hit so hard?"

Buddy stopped laughing at that and sniffed the air a little.

Buddy – "I .. I really don't know. You smell human enough. Maybe a little more human than normal."

Kendra, frowning – "You say you're a Slayer and a vampire? At the same time?"

O-O-O-O

Buffy – "I know, I know. It's weird. But hey, my friends are human. See, Xander's holding a cross and it's not burning him."

Xander bore a cross for all to see.

A lady with an English accent – "What are your names? First and last please."

Buffy – "Buffy Summers."

Xander – "Xander Harris."

Willow – "Willow Rosenburg."

The other four gasped and stared at them like they were aliens.

Buffy – "You know, if you keep your mouth open like that, you'll catch flies."

A red-headed boy – "They're.."

The dark-headed girl – "Us! They're us! Except I'm a boy. I mean, he's a guy."

O-O-O-O

Giles had come back from his car with a loaded crossbow which he pointed in Buddy's general direction.

Giles – "You're trying to tell me that your name is Buddy Summers?"

Buddy – "What's so strange about that? Hey, um, you kind of remind me of someone. Maybe you're related to her somehow. What are your names anyway?"

O-O-O-O

A beefy jock type guy - "Sam Chase."

A cute, raven haired girl – "Lexx Harris."

A somewhat scrawny, nerdy and redheaded boy – "Willard Rosenburg."

The respectable British woman with her hair tied up in a bun – "Bertha Giles."

Buffy – "Its times like this, I ask myself what would Mr T do?"

Xander had gone up to his female counterpart, looked her up and down and smiled a rakish, lopsided smile.

Xander – "Hey, check it out. I'm really cute."

Lexx, his female counterpart smiled a similar smile.

O-O-O-O

Buddy – "No! Way! You're.. You're Giles! But you're a man!"

Giles – "It has been said before."

Buddy, put away his sword with a groan – "How did this happen? One minute, I was chasing that fruit cake and the next it's like I'm Allen through the looking glass."

Giles, to Buddy - "Did something strange happen inside the mansion?"

Buddy – "You mean like the strange thing that's happened? Yes and as a matter a fact it did and it's still happening."

Giles – "Yes, well, be that as it may, we obviously have a dire situation on our hands so it's best that we keep our heads."

Buddy – "Keep our heads? I'm staring at Giles the man and the worlds first female Slayer. This is nuts!"

Giles picked out his radio while Buddy shook his head low in disbelief.

Giles – "Xander? Xander, pick up. Are you there?"

Kendra – "Giles, I tink this Buddy is an alternate of Buffy."

Giles hemmed a little and nodded as he put away his radio with a sigh.

Giles – "So it would seem and it seems that Buffy and the others are now missing also. I'm taking a leap of faith here but I presume that some pan-dimensional event swapped them and Buddy was brought to our dimension while Buffy, Xander and Willow were taken to his. And that in Buddy's dimension the sexes have somehow been inverted."

Buddy – "I'm thinking the same thing. So what do we do about it? Go back into the house and try to get zapped by the Elder again?"

Giles, surprised – "You know about the Elder? But how?"

Buddy – "I'm guessing that it's the thing that brought me here."

Giles – "Yes but it's in our dimension, not yours. How could you possibly know about it?"

Buddy, looking at Giles strangely – "No. It's in our dimension. We chased some psychopath to this mansion and I chased them in while the others waited outside."

Giles – "You chased him in alone?"

Buddy, nodding – "Yeah. Because Giles, my Giles, the female version of you, thought that vampires were particularly resistant to the Elder's mind tricks. She thought that if I happened to stumble into the room it was in, that I wouldn't instantly be struck down with a bout of insanity and get myself eaten."

Giles, rubbing his chin – "That's an interesting theory. One I cannot prove or disprove. I wonder why she thought of it."

Buddy – "Look, he-Giles, got any way I could get back home?"

Giles – "Uh, yes. Yes, I believe so. It's back at the library so we will have to travel back there. This way, uh, Buddy."

Buddy shrugged and followed Giles to his car.

Buddy, groaning upon seeing Giles' car – "I can't believe this. You've got the same car in my world too."

Giles, smiling – "Really?"

Buddy – "Yeah. Except in my world, it's green."

Giles, considering this – "What a coincidence. Green is my favorite color."

Buddy – "Really? I thought it was white."

Kendra – "I'll take the back seat. I don't want to sit in front of the vampire. No offense."

Buddy, with an amused smile – "None taken."

Giles got in the drivers seat and unlocked the side door for Kendra. She pushed forward the passenger side front seat and ducked under the gap so she could position herself in the back seat. Buddy did the same, squishing against Kendra as he slid into the backseat with her.

Giles took a look back at the two Slayers then ignored them and started the engine.

Buddy smiled at Kendra, who was starting a nice cold sweat of dread.

Buddy, as Giles drove the car out of park – "Are you really a Slayer?"

Kendra, sounding a little offended – "Yes. I was called when Buffy drowned after a fight with da Master."

Buddy considered this.

Buddy – "Yeah, that happened to me too. So that means you're.. Oh god."

Kendra – "What?"

Buddy – "Nothing. It's just your male version is really different."

Kendra, curiously – "How different?"

Buddy – "Firstly, he's not shy at all. Secondly, he's got dread locks. Like huge ones."

Kendra – "I'm not shy."

Buddy gave her a smirk and put his hand on her knee. Kendra looked at his hand then back up at him then shook his hand off as if it was burning her.

Kendra – "Keep your hands to yourself."

Buddy, chuckled – "And you said you weren't shy."

Kendra – "I-uh-I don't let boys touch me."

Buddy, frowning – "Why not? Did something happen to you when you were a kid?"

Kendra – "No! Nothing happened. I was raised by the watchers council. They treated me with very well."

Buddy – "Okay then why are you so frigid?"

Kendra – "I.. Slayer's are not permitted to talk to boys."

Buddy blinked at her then turned to Giles.

Buddy, obviously shocked – "Is that really true?"

Giles – "To a certain respect, yes. Slayers raised by the council are often kept away from boys as it distracts from their duties and training."

Buddy – "Whoa, now that's different."

Giles, curiously – "How so?"

Buddy – "I, um, wasn't raised by the watchers since birth so I'm not an expert but there is one tradition that I don't think you guys have."

Giles – "Oh, really? I must say I'm intrigued. You obviously come from a dimension that runs parallel to ours except for the obvious differences. That the watchers would have a different set of traditions is remarkable. If you would describe what you know, I might mention it to the watchers council in our dimension as a way to improve the training of our Slayers."

Buddy chuckled and leant forward in his seat, leaning on the seat in front of him as he did.

Buddy – "Well, the most somber of all Slayer traditions, the one most steepled in antiquity and ritual is that upon being called that the Slayer will be introduced into manhood."

Kendra and Giles both frowned while Buddy fought to contain his laughter.

Kendra – "Just how are they introduced into manhood?"

Buddy cracked up a little and wiggled a suggestive eyebrow at her.

Buddy, full of humor – "I can draw you a diagram if you want."

Giles and Kendra were both a little shocked.

Giles – "Surely you don't mean that –"

Buddy, cracking up – "Yup!"

Kendra – "So when you were called, you –"

Buddy, quickly cutting her off – "No. I was tempted but I decided to save myself for someone special."

Kendra – "So you haven't..?"

Buddy – "Yes. I have. Numerous times actually. I don't like to brag but I'm something of a stud where I come from. And my first time was really kinda special too. It's where I got this from."

He tilted his head to the side to bare his neck to Kendra, pointing out the bite marks on the side.

Buddy – "It wasn't the type of special I was looking for but you've got to admit it makes an interesting story. Hey um, you wanna touch it?"

Kendra looked at him oddly.

Buddy – "Oh come on. You know you want to… You get that I'm talking about the bite, right?"

O-O-O-O

Outside on the street, two figures in light gray clothes approached each other. They both wore hoods and under their hoods, they wore ski-masks.

One was heavier set and male while the other was obviously female.

They spoke as one – "We've got a problem."

They both looked at each other in shock and spoke again as if reading from the same script.

"Oh crap."

O-O-O-O

Kendra, Giles and Buddy had arrived at the library.

Giles led them in the door and turned back to Buddy.

Giles – "If you'll just stay put, I'll find what we need to get you back."

As Giles went into his office, Buddy looked Kendra up and down.

Buddy, enjoying the view – "Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

A few seconds later and Giles came out with a small flask.

Giles, holding it up and displaying it as something to be proud of – "Here's one that I made earlier."

Buddy – "What is it? A potion?"

Giles, handing it to Buddy – "Yes. You see, once I heard that we may be facing an Elder, I researched means to protect against its attacks. That's when I came across an entry on THIS. It's a potion for returning a wayward traveler back to his home realm. You see, Elder are known for the nasty habit of propelling hapless victims through the multiverse."

Kendra – "You should have given us these potions earlier."

Giles – "Uh, yes. I should have. But I only had the ingredients for one. I was going to get more tomorrow, once the magic stores opened. I wasn't expecting to contend with the Elder quite yet."

Buddy, looking at the potion skeptically – "This thing is supposed to get me back to my own dimension but, and let me get this straight, I drink it?"

Giles – "Yes. You drink it."

Buddy – "And it teleports me?"

Giles – "Yes. That's correct. What seems to be the problem?"

Buddy – "What if it just teleports, just say, only my stomach and not the rest of me?"

Giles, sighing – "It won't. It will teleport everything. You have my word."

Buddy considered this but his eyes kept creeping over to Kendra.

Buddy - "Hey. I don't have to go straight away, do I? It wouldn't hurt if I stayed a few days. I could, uh, research how things are done here. Like you were saying before that it could be greatly beneficial to trade traditions and stuff."

Giles hemmed and shook his head.

Giles – "Actually, it would hurt if you stayed. The longer you stay here, the more you become acclimatized to our dimension. Once you've fully adapted, it will be almost impossible to return you to your home. That potion will stop working for you completely."

Buddy considered this and looked over at Kendra again.

Giles, lying very smoothly – "Also, you'll slowly turn into a girl. I'm not entirely sure what the transition will entail but I can guarantee than it will be very painful and very embarrassing."

Buddy, cringing – "Oh, so this is really a now-thing?"

Giles – "Yes."

Buddy sighed. Then he looked up at Kendra and smirked.

Kendra, frowning – "What?"

Buddy, gasping suddenly – "Hey! They don't have those where I come from! What the hell is that thing!"

Giles and Kendra both turned to look and Buddy took Kendra by surprise, kissing her on the mouth.

Kendra was shocked at first then horrified then she turned livid. Livid only in temperament as her skin kept its delicious hue.

Buddy, chuckling – "Sculling time."

And indeed, he did scull and run at the same time, running away from the furious Jamaican beauty and out into the hallway.

O-O-O-O

In the other dimension, everyone else had returned to the library.

Lexx to Xander – "I bet you're a stud in your dimension."

Xander snorted and Buffy hit him on the arm, gently.

Buffy – "Hey, you are a stud. You're dating the head of the cheerleading squad."

Xander – "Yeah, you've got me there. I'm dating Cordelia which… Hang on. Who is Sam supposed to be?"

Buffy – "I thought you knew. He's Cordy's male twin."

Xander looked at Sam and shook his head.

Xander – "I don't think so."

Buffy – "Yeah. He is. You don't see the resemblance?"

Xander, groaning – "This is so wrong. Seeing your girlfriend turned into a man just topped my personal list of things I never wanted to see."

Buffy – "What? Even beating Drusilla's tonsils?"

Xander – "Strangely, yes."

Sam – "So you're dating female-me? God, I have bad taste in men."

Lexx, insulted – "No you don't! He's a hottie!"

Xander – "Thanks, other me."

Lexx, smiling – "You're welcome. And did you say he's called Cord-e-lia?"

Xander, nodding – "Which makes me wonder why he's got a normal name like Sam here."

Lexx, getting a groan out of Sam – "His full name is Isambard."

Sam – "So I'm the head of the cheerleading squad in your world?"

Buffy – "That's right. It's hard to be humble when you can jump, stunt and tumble."

This got another groan for Sam.

Sam – "So what am I like?"

Xander - "There's really only one word to describe Cordelia."

Buffy – "And that's bitch. With a capital B."

Xander – "I was going to say high maintenance but that works too."

Sam – "So if she's such a hassle, why do you out with her?"

Xander – "Because she's got legs that go on forever."

Buffy – "Nice cleavage too."

Willard, looking at Willow's chest – "And I've got..."

He decided not to finish that sentence.

Right then, Buddy walked into the library and everyone turned his way.

Buddy – "Hey guys. Miss me?"

Willard – "Buddy! Where did you go?"

Buddy, shrugging – "Nowhere special. So who are they and hey, who's the knock out blonde? Hey cutie-pie. Here's looking at ya."

Buddy winked at Buffy who just stared back at him like he was some sort of freak.

Giles – "Uh, Buddy. I'm not sure how to explain this but it seems that the blonde is a female version of yourself."

Buddy – "Really? Cool. Gotta say, I've got a nice rack."

Giles – "You don't seem very surprised."

Buddy, shrugging again – "Come on. Just look at her. She's the hottest thing on two legs. Of course she's the female version of me. I would've figured it out sooner or later."

Buffy, dismayed – "Oh god. I'm a jerk!"

Willard, to Buddy – "You were expecting them to be here, weren't you?"

Buddy, sighing – "Yes. I was. But come on. You should've seen their faces. Particularly his."

Buddy pointed towards Xander, who frowned.

Buddy – "I just came from their dimension. Their Giles gave me a potion to drink to get me back home. I take it you've got a potion to give them, don't you?"

All eyes turned to Lady-Giles who just looked confused.

Giles – "No. I don't have any sort of potion."

Buddy – "Uh, really? Are you sure? Not even one?"

Giles – "No. I've never heard of anything like that. A potion you drink that allows dimensional travel? That's absurd."

Buffy – "So you don't have one?"

Giles – "No. I don't."

Xander – "So what do we do to get back? Go back the way we came and hope for the best?"

Willow – "I don't think that would be a good idea. The Elder could just toss us somewhere different. Somewhere even worse. Like a world where the Nazi's won world war two. Oh! The Nazi's didn't win world war two here, did they?"

Willard – "No. They didn't."

Willow – "Oh good. Cos I'm kinda Jewish and that-that would be scary."

Willard, sighing – "I'm Jewish too."

Buddy, nudging into Willard, whispering – "Hey Will. Your female counterpart is hot. Plus, I've probably got a better shot with her than with you."

Willard, glaring at Buddy – "And how am I supposed to respond to that? Please, just tell me."

Sam, yelling off at himself – "I can't believe this. I'm a cheerleader. A fricken cheerleader?"

Buffy – "What? It's a sport!"

Lexx, laughing – "No, it's not!"

Giles – "I'm seeing that our worlds are not a direct conversion."

Buddy – "What do you mean?"

Giles – "In their dimension, Sam in the head cheerleader while in ours, he's the captain of the gridiron team. Now unless in their dimension, cheerleading involves safety gear and running with a pigskin ball then it would seem that there is more difference between our dimensions that it would first appear."

Buffy – "Yeah. Like where's Kendra?"

Giles – "Kendra?"

Buddy – "The other Slayer in their world. A world class piece of ass."

Buffy, smirking – "I'll tell her you said that."

Buddy, smirking back the same way – "Would you? And tell her she's a great kisser too."

Buffy gasped – "You kissed her?"

Buddy – "Just a little."

Giles – "They brought in another Slayer to help you?"

Buffy, nodded – "They did it to help with the Elder."

Buddy – "They didn't send the other slayer to us. They thought I could handle it on my own."

Giles – "Curious. Not only are the genders flipped but the Slayer's are weaker too."

Buffy – "Hey, I wouldn't go that far. I-I could take him."

Buddy chuckled, not really believing that.

Giles – "Of that, I doubt. Men are the obvious choice for the Slayer empowerment. They're stronger, more adapted to physical hardship and more emotionally resilient."

Buffy – "While women tend to be more intuitive, have a higher threshold for pain and in a lot of ways, smarter. No offense man-me but you look kinda dense."

Buddy, shrugging – "I get hit in the head a lot."

Xander – "And there's also that thing about how you all are carrying swords. What's with that?"

Buddy – "What's with how you aren't carrying swords?"

Willard – "Swords are the most basic, simple weapon known to man. You just hack and slash and it dies."

Buffy – "I think it's because they're a.. phallic object."

Xander held up a stake – "This isn't exactly a feminine hygiene product either."

Sam, muttering under his breath to Lexx – "Someone's got a small one."

Lexx chuckled a little.

Xander – "I think they're onto something. We should carry swords too. Big, flashy, shiny ones. Then we'll show them who's wearing the pants."

Lexx and Sam cracked up and a few people looked their way.

Xander – "What's so funny? Is it something I said?"

Buddy – "Oh! And in their world, the Slayer's don't have a, um, guide into womanhood."

Giles hemmed a little, becoming a little uncomfortable as she felt a sudden need to clean her glasses.

Buffy, looking at him oddly – "A what? Guide into womanhood? What's that?"

Buddy – "It's really simple. In our world, when a Slayer is called, they're brought into manhood. Generally with the help of a, hmm, what would we call her? A lady of negotiable virtue."

Buffy – "They get them laid?"

Xander, taking this news better than his two female friends – "You know, if we start that in our world, I wouldn't mind that job."

Lexx, laughing – "That's what I said when I heard about it."

Buddy – "And Giles explained to her how the queue for willing girls is like so huge! They've got a catalog and everything."

Willow, in confusion – "A catalog?"

Buffy closed her eyes and cleared her mind of all this nonsense.

Buffy – "This is all just complexifying the issue. Obviously we have to get back to our world, so we need a way to do that. And we need to find the loony toon who's hacking up people for spare parts. Has anyone got any ideas?"

Giles – "I think we should start researching for a magic means to take you back home."

Buffy – "Good and while you're all doing that, me and my alternate here will be out hunting down the psycho."

Willard – "You should take a sword first. Here, take Lexx's."

Lexx – "Hey! Why mine?"

Willard – "Because it's lighter than the others. It's for girls."

Buffy rolled her eyes, walked past Willard and picked up the largest sword on the table.

Sam – "Hey. That's mine."

Buffy flashed him a smile.

Buffy – "You want to take it from me?"

Xander grimly shook his head and Sam backed down.

Buffy – "Good. We'll be back in an hour or two. Then we'll.. oh crap. I don't suppose Giles has three couches in this dimension."

Buddy, shaking his head – "Only one."

Buffy, considering this and then smiling – "Then I guess some of us will have to share the bed."

Willow – "Bag's not."

Xander – "Damn."

Giles, taking off her glasses to furiously rub them on her blouse – "Let's see if we can't find a solution before bedtime, shall we?"

Xander – "Yes. Let's. Because Buffy really has cold feet."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later and Buffy and Buddy were patrolling along a quite cemetery somewhere.

Buddy, looking up at the night sky with a smile – "It's a nice night."

Buffy, with her own coy smile – "Yes, it is. Your Giles seems nice. A little younger than ours."

Buddy - "She moisturizes."

Buffy – "Ahh. That explains it."

Then Buffy felt vampires coming their way. Lots of vampires. She tensed and looked around while Buddy kept walking.

Buffy, hissing – "Hey. Don't you feel that?"

Buddy, looking at her oddly – "Feel what?"

Buffy – "Vampires. You.. You don't feel that at all?"

Buddy shook his head and looked around for vampires and then shrugged.

Buddy – "There's no one out there."

Buffy – "Oh my god. That's so weird. You don't have a slayer radar, do you?"

Buddy – "A what?"

Buffy – "It's um, when vampires or other nasties are nearby, we get sort of cramp at the bottom of our gut. You don't have anything like that?"

Buddy, looking at her oddly again – "You're joking right?"

Buffy, whispering – "No. I'm not. Now ssh."

Buddy humored her and waited for vampires. Then he heard something and he tried to pinpoint the source.

A beautiful, yet extremely off-key woman's voice sung out.

"Every move you make."

Buddy groaned and unsheathed his sword.

"Every vow you break."

Buffy looked up at him and slowly unsheathed her own borrowed sword.

"Every smile you fake."

Buddy – "Stop playing around, Angel and just come out."

Buffy gave Buddy a weird look and then a tall, leggy vampire appeared, standing confidently on top of a mausoleum. She was dressed in a long black cape, tight leather pants and an off-black halter top. Her hair was long and had some nice highlighting done on the front.

Angel, still singing – "Every claim you stake, I'll be watching yooooou."

Buffy, chuckling – "Omigod! That's Angel!"

Buddy – "Yeah. Why?"

Buffy – "It's just.. Wow! Those leather pants really work on her, don't they?"

Buddy, nodding wistfully – "Yeah. She always did fill clothes out nicely."

Angel, the female version, frowning – "Who is this your with? I've never seen her before."

Buddy – "This is, uh, Delilah. She's my new girlfriend."

Buffy went with the play and nodded happily.

Buffy, ditzily – "It's true. We're in love. We have romantic dinners and sex and everything. Buddy's so good to me. We're gonna get married in the fall."

Buddy – "She's so much better than you in bed. I almost wish you were a guy so you could have sex with her and realize how much better she is."

Buffy, nodding some more – "It's true. I'm pretty good."

Angel watched the display from her vantage point for a few seconds then just got bored with it.

Angel, calling out – "Okay. You can all come out now and kill them now!"

From all around the graveyard, vampires sprung up out from behind gravestones and sharply manicured hedges. Each of them had a sword of some description. There must have been around thirty of the bloodsuckers.

Buffy, shocked at the numbers – "Holy cow!"

Buddy, similarly shocked – "Holy cow! Hey girl, do you know how to use that sword?"

Buffy – "Let's find out."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	16. 5c Meaningless sacrifice

Author notes – I originally wanted to call this chapter "Ditches and why people lie in them." but it was kinda lengthy so I called it "Meaningless sacrifice." instead.

O-O-O-O

Vampires had surrounded our twin heroes, Buffy and Buddy.

It looked grim indeed as the vampires carefully closed in, making sure to keep a nice round circle and close any gaps as they did. This was going to be an execution.

Then Buffy's arm flashed out and one of the vampires found itself with a stake where its heart should be.

All the vampires stopped what they were doing and stared at the dusted vampire, including Angel and Buddy.

Buddy – "How.. did you do that?"

Buffy, smirking – "What that? You want to see that again?"

Buffy pulled another stake out of an inside pocket and spun it a few times in her fingers as she scanned the crowd for the older vampires present. All eyes were on her as she found a suitable target and threw the stake. It lodged into its chest, dusting it.

Angel, enraged and screaming – "Just attack! Kill them, you idiots!"

The vampires rushed in on command and the Slayers stood back to back, swords ready like baseballers ready to strike a home run swing.

Both Slayers swung out with their swords, each sword making a deadly wide arc and cutting down vampires like so much wheat. But after that first strike they were swarmed and the vampires clambered over them in a confused dog pile of flesh and steel.

Swords were stabbed down and thrust into the center, presumably into the overwhelmed Slayers.

Then the Slayers roared as one force and vampires were thrown off as if hit by an explosion.

While some vampires stayed down, stunned, others ran up and trampled over their fallen brethren to get the slayers.

Buddy and Buffy's swords both flashed in a whirling dance of deflection and decapitation. Now that the attacks had thinned slightly, enemy vampires were dusting left, right and centre.

Amidst the bone dust and cries of agony, two swords fell down point first and stuck upright out of the ground. Buffy put her hand on one while Buddy put his hand on the other. They both shared a little chuckle and then went on the offensive.

Both swung their dual swords wildly, viciously and in the manner of a helicopter.

Angel watched them both in horror, gaping at how easily her minions were being felled.

Angel – "Just.. Just kill them! What is wrong with all of you? There's only two of them! ARRH! Why am I surrounded by idiots!"

Then she turned on her heel and took her leave before the Slayers turned their attentions towards her.

Buffy was actually starting to tire. For the first time in while, she was thankful that she didn't technically need to breathe air.

Behind her, she heard Buddy roar and something large, grey and extremely solid collided with the three vampires in front of her. The sheer force dusted two of them and knocked the third one down with the force of a car crash.

Buffy turned and found Buddy smirking her way, having already finished his share of vampires.

Buffy – "What the hell was that?"

Buddy – "Gravestone."

Buffy – "You threw a gravestone? That fast? How?"

Buddy, pointing with a finger – "You're going to miss one."

Buffy turned back to find the last remaining vampire staggering to his feet to retreat.

Buffy, smirking as she pulled yet another stake out of her jacket – "I don't think so."

She threw and her aim was dead-on, staking it through the back and dusting it.

Buffy, watching the dust settle – "It's all in the wrist."

When she turned around, Buddy took her head in his hands and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Buffy was a little surprised at first but then closed her eyes and reciprocated.

They broke it off and found each other both smiling.

Buffy – "You know what's really weird?"

Buddy – "That wasn't weird at all."

Buffy – "Yeah."

Buddy, growling in need – "My god, you're incredible."

Buffy – "Yes, I am."

They kissed again, locking lips and laid themselves down amongst the ash and littered weapons of their fallen enemies, eager for more.

O-O-O-O

A few hours later.

Back at the library, almost everyone was busy researching. Everyone except Xander and his female counterpart, Lexx. They were too busy laughing at their own jokes to get anything done. At least they had the common courtesy to do it in the stacks, away from everyone.

Sam took another look towards the stacks and grumbled something which no one else heard.

Willard, to Sam – "What was that?"

Sam – "I said that there's got to be some sort of joke about Lexx loving herself here but I can't think of one."

Willow sighed and slammed down the heavy book she was reading.

Willow – "Xander! I can't concentrate when you're playing with yourself like that."

Sam and Willard laughed their asses off and Willow looked at them blankly.

Willow, oblivious – "What?"

Xander and Lexx came out from behind the bookshelves, still laughing.

Xander – "Willow, you've got to hear how the story about how Lexx lost her virginity. It's hilarious."

This caused Sam to groan and drop his face in his hands.

Sam – "Someone kill me. I can't take two of them. I just can't."

Willow looked out towards the door and put on a thoughtful face.

Willard, to Willow – "You're worried about Buffy, aren't you?"

Willow – "Yeah."

Willard – "Buffy's your lifeline, your protector and without her, you're feeling a little exposed."

Willow, a little angrily – "You can stop narrating my thoughts out loud now."

Willard, with a little sad smile – "I'm starting to worry a little too. I really hope they're not lying naked in a ditch somewhere."

O-O-O-O

Buffy and Buddy were both lying naked in a ditch of their own creation.

They didn't seem to be disturbed at this thought however.

Buffy, smiling wickedly – "I guess now we know which sex is better."

Buddy rolled his eyes.

Buddy – "Girl, I've never known anyone who could do the things you can do before. That thing you did when we were, you know, I don't even know what it's called."

Buffy – "Me neither... Did you like it?"

Buddy, chuckling – "Did I like it? Yeah. That's one way to say it."

Buddy looked down between them and tilted his head curiously. Buffy looked down too then chuckled, thinking she realized what Buddy was looking at.

Buffy, looking down at her chest – "They're nice, aren't they?"

Buddy – "No. I mean yes. THEY are very nice. But I was just wondering, what's this thing?"

He took hold of Buffy's amulet of Teznan.

Buffy – "The amulet of Teznan. It's a doohickey that allows me to walk in sunlight."

Buffy took hold of the necklace around Buddy's neck and studied it.

Buddy – "The amulet of Sheznar. Does the same thing."

Buffy's amulet was huge, golden and rectangular affair while Buddy's was an S shaped piece of silver with jewels embedded along its length.

Buffy – "Hey um.."

Buddy – ".. Wanna swap? Hell yeah. This thing is so girly."

They both chuckled and swapped necklaces.

Buffy, now pouting – "You know, it's a pity I can't stay."

Buddy – "Yeah. You're.. you take my breath away."

Buffy, snorting – "You're so lame. Everything you say, it's total lameness."

Buddy – "But you'll still respect me in the morning, won't you?"

This cracked Buffy up again and she muffled her laughter in the nook under his jaw.

Buddy, pushing her off – "Hey. That tickles. And we have to get dressed."

Buffy moaned and pouted a little.

Buddy – "I'm sorry but we really do."

Buffy groaned and slowly got up to collect her clothes with Buddy doing the same.

Buffy – "I can be such a drag sometimes."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later and they were walking back to the library.

Buffy was lagging behind a little.

Buddy, chuckling a little – "Someone's having trouble walking."

Buffy shot him an unimpressed look which quickly softened into insane giggling.

Buffy – "Yeah. I admit that I am. Next time, we get a motel room. That way there'll be less chance of somethng stabbing me in the ass while we're doing it.. uh, did that came out wrong?"

Buddy, smirking – "I'll even pay for the room."

Buffy – "Really?"

Buddy – "Yeah. The council gives us an allowance for things like that."

Buffy's mouth gaped open at him.

Buddy – "What? You mean you don't? Oh man. Your world just sucks the big carrot in the sky, doesn't it?"

Buffy, fuming – "That is so unfair.. hey. Ssh."

Buddy silenced himself and listened at Buffy's signal.

O-O-O-O

A remarkably short, pudgy but adorably cute girl was struggling against the large ski-masked man who was holding her. Her screams were muffled by the man's gloved hand across her mouth.

The grey man – "Do it. Stab the bitch."

Across the alleyway, the grey woman came out of the shadows and unsheathed a wicked little dagger. She approached slowly, waving the dagger in front of her and enjoying the terror in their victim's eyes.

Suddenly, Buffy's hand reached out and grabbed their dagger hand by the wrist. Then Buffy gave her a quick elbow to face and knocked her out.

The grey man turned just in time to see Buddy's fist collide with his eye, knocking him out instantly.

The girl he was holding ran off down the alleyway without even a thank you.

Buffy, sighing at the fleeing victim – "It's always the way."

Buddy, looking down at the two grey people – "I guess we should take them back."

Buffy – "Looks like. Same as before. You take the guy, I take the girl."

Buddy, smirking as he heaved the man onto his shoulder – "And I told you it would've been so much more fun the other way around. Seeing you knocking him out would've been classic."

Buffy – "What? You don't like girl fights? I thought all guys like those."

Buddy – "Ooh. Good point."

O-O-O-O

Buddy and Buffy walked into the library. Buddy still had the man on his shoulder and he deposited him on the library counter while Buffy took the easy route and was dragging the girl behind her along the ground and by the legs.

Buddy – "Hey guys. You'd never guess who we bumped into."

The assembled Scoobies gaped the returning heroes.

Giles – "My lord. What happened? You were gone for a few hours so we gathered something had happened but you two look as if you had gone through a war."

Buddy and Buffy looked at each other. They had been beaten and cut deeply during their fight with Angel's minions and their clothes hadn't fared very well after their consummation in the aftermath.

Buffy, a little uncomfortably – "Yeah. A war. That about sums it up."

Buddy – "Giles. You should have seen what this girl can do."

Buffy, giving Buddy a weird look – "No, they don't. Don't give them any details either. Please."

Buddy – "She can do this thing with a stake. I don't know how. She just throws it and it hits them in the heart, every time."

Buffy – "Oh, uh, well, not every time. I do miss sometimes. But you should see what HE did. He threw a gravestone. But that's not the impressive part. He threw it right after pulling it out of the ground. And it took two vampire's heads off like a flying guillotine. I've never seen anything like that."

Buddy – "But she's also got a - what did you call it? A slayer radar?"

Buffy nodded and Buddy continued.

Buddy – "She could sense the vampires before the attacked. Like half a minute before they attacked."

Buffy – "It's kinda easy when there's a big swarm of them like that. Every Slayer where we're from has that. I don't know why you don't."

Giles – "It would seem that the different Slayers each have different skills. Buddy has strength while Buffy has more mental acuity. How intriguing."

Buddy – "Oh no, she's got strength too. She's got strength in bucket loads. That drop dead gorgeous exterior hides a lean, mean killing machine."

Buffy, very pleased – "Right back at ya, Bud."

Willow – "Maybe it's a difference in training. Buffy, you still have to train your radar and throwy-stakey abilities, don't you?"

Buffy, nodding – "Just like how I train everything else."

Buddy – "So you think I could throw stakes like that?"

Buffy, shrugging – "Probably. The key is in visualization. You have to visualize the stake as it flies through the air and lands where you want it. It took me a few weeks to get it right. And then it took me even longer to do it consistently while actually in a fight. Like I say, I still miss sometimes."

Giles – "Visualization. Yes, it's a technique we're quite familiar with."

Sam, nodding – "We use it in football."

Giles – "Yes, quite. I'd like to talk about this more but for now, why don't we address the two ne'er-do-wells you brought in. The female seems to rousing."

Buddy and Buffy stuck the grey clothes people side by side. They pulled back the grey hoodies they were wearing and then Buffy pulled the ski-mask off of the girl.

Lexx – "Lara?"

Then Buddy pulled the ski-mask off of the man.

Xander – "Larry!"

Buffy - "I was expecting old man Whitey, not Larry and his girl-twin. Not someone we already know."

Lara, the girl had wakened up enough to realize that they had been caught red-handed. She started sobbing against her male-twin.

The scene was heart-breaking in a disturbing sort of way. They were murderers but all they looked like now were victims.

Willow – "I don't get it. Larry doesn't fit any of the profile."

Willard – "She's right. Lara isn't rich or crazy or into the occult or anything. She's just a little…"

Sam – "Slutty? Yeah. Everyone knows that."

Xander and Lexx, in unison – "They're gay."

Everyone stared at them.

Sam – "Lara? Gay? And you would know this how? And don't skimp on any lurid details."

Lexx and Xander looked at each other. Lexx gave Xander a "you-first" nod and so Xander explained.

Xander – "Trust me, they're gay. I found it out when I went through Larry's locker. At first I thought I had found some porn. Then I realized that I had found the wrong type of porn."

Lexx – "Now hold on there. There's no such thing as the wrong kind of porn."

Willow – "Yeah, actually I think there is. Two guys together. Eww."

Lexx – "And how would you know about that?"

Willow – "I got an email once and.. I don't want to talk about it."

Lexx, muttering under her breath – "Each to their own."

Giles – "But that doesn't explain why the Elder chose them as servants. Being homosexual isn't exactly a damning mental condition."

Buffy – "It is if you don't feel you can tell anyone about it."

Buddy – "Yeah. She's right. Lara was acting extra straight to make up for the fact that she wasn't. She was overcompensating. Obviously, the fear of rejection was turning her insane. It would just boil up inside her with no way to escape."

Lara, sobbing – "You don't know its like."

Buffy and Buddy shared a look and then Buffy turned around and crouched next to Lara.

Buffy – "Actually I do. I like girls too. I just couldn't tell anyone. Not my friends. Definitely not my family. There's a lot I can't tell them."

Lara – "No. You're lying."

Buffy gently stroked Lara's hair.

Buffy – "Am I?"

Then the gently leaned over and kissed Lara on the mouth. It went on much longer than necessary and by the time it was over, Giles had already cleaned her glasses twice over.

When Buffy finished and pulled away, Lara's defenses were shattered and she just kind of blubbered uselessly, clinging to her counterpart.

Xander, as Buffy turned back to the others – "Buffy. You're gay?"

Buffy, shaking her head in the negative but saying something else – "A long time actually. Too long. I just didn't tell you because I didn't want you to treat me any differently."

Xander, going with the play – "Oh. Uh. Well you should have told me that beforehand. I still, um, respect you. In fact, I think maybe I respect you even more now."

Buffy, smirking – "Thanks. That's means a lot."

Giles, hemming for attention - "I don't believe that it's a coincidence that you came to our realm. Obviously you stumbled across the dimensional portal that Lara and Larry used to travel between our two realms. Why, I'm not completely certain but –"

Willow – "But it's completely obvious why. The Elder saw their desires and made the portal to show them possibilities, what-ifs and it probably promised that they would be able to live in a world they weren't born in."

Giles – "But to what end?"

Buffy – "Fantasy."

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "Don't tell me I'm the only one who is feeling a little unisex lately. All this meeting your gender-bender self opens your eyes to how you'd actually be if you were a boy or a girl in Xander's case."

Xander, smiling – "By the way, I'd be hot. That's how I'd be."

Buffy – "Exactly. Lara and Larry, They were just weak. They were exploited by something that played to that weakness."

Buddy – "You're scheming, aren't you?"

Buffy, smirking – "Maybe."

Giles – "Then by all means tell us your scheme."

Buffy – "It's simple. We exploit their weakness too."

This got a few frowns from others in the room.

Buddy – "Huh?"

Buffy – "You really do get hit in the head a lot, don't you?"

Giles – "This plan, what does it involve?"

Buffy – "A few things. Giles, you're going to play a part in it. Willow, Willard, I hope you're both as smart as I think you are."

Willow and Willard both frowned.

Willow – "Suddenly I'm not so sure about this plan."

Buffy smirked – "Don't worry, you'll love it."

Larry slowly woke up, just as the Scoobies were brought into a huddle to discuss his twin's and his own future.

O-O-O-O

At the center of the mansion there was an imposingly large room. The roof bulged upwards like a bloated balloon and darkness hid all but the entrance and the first few steps in.

The door burst open and two of the Elder's minions stumbled in, both dragging heavy sacks mottled with large blood stains.

Larry, apologetically – "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We were caught. It took us this long to escape."

A billowing series of low shrieks assaulted the two minions and they cowered fearfully.

Lara, kicking her sack forward and backpedaling back from it – "We brought food. Good food. Your favorite."

The cries of disappointment gave way to a hungry rumbling. Two impossibly large mouths flashed out of the darkness just long enough to crunch down on a sack each.

Lara turned back to towards the open door they came through, towards Willow who was standing just outside.

Lara – "Now!"

Willow and Willard both flicked a bunch of switches and at first nothing happened.

Then the Elder screamed in agony and the thick darkness surrounding them rolled back to reveal their true horror.

Lara and Larry both froze in terror when they saw what they had been nurturing in that abandoned building.

Buddy opened the doors and grabbed them both from behind the collars to drag them out. As he did, he got a look at the roof and had to gape a little himself.

Buddy – "What the fudge? You never said there were two of them!"

Larry, as he regained some measure of sanity – "We didn't know!"

The two terrors thudded down from the ceiling and the whole mansion shook. Walls fractured and split in half, warping as the Elder's struggled to retain control over the very construction of space around them.

A mass of tangled tentacles wrapped around both sides of the doorway out and tore them sideways, demolishing the walls as it did. The hallway became part of the dining room and the scoobies found themselves staring into the maws of twin beasts of non-Euclidean madness. They both appeared as a giant set of green teeth, connected together like a worm with two heads and moving via a myriad of slime dripping tentacles.

One of the mouths hacked up a giant ball of projectile goo which hit Xander and Willard, knocking them both off their feet.

Sam picked out a spinning angle-grinder from the goo and threw it back where it came from, back inside the Elder's giant gaping mouth.

The elder's spat and coughed up electric drills, angle-grinders and all manners of other spinning, drilling electric equipment. All of them were radio-activated by the simple radio units which Willard and Willow had soldered onto their sides.

In pain and in terrifying rage, the Elders both roared again. It was a cry of betrayal and an oath to slaughter.

Larry, strangely calm sounding – "They're angry."

Xander, wiping demon sticky fluids off himself for the second time that week – "You don't say."

Then two new sounds were heard, the chug-chug-chug sounds of two chainsaws starting up.

Buffy and Buddy appeared, standing on top of the giant heads. Each had a large chainsaw and a smile to share.

Then they pointed the chainsaws down and dug into the giant meatball heads. Goo sprayed up from the attack and the two giant demons struggled to throw the Slayer's off but couldn't.

Soon, the slayers both hit bone and powered their way through into way they presumed was the brain cavity on the monsters.

The elders struggled still, giving one last effort. The connection between them tore and from it, their insides spilled out. The giant heads, now free from restraint, rolled over and the Slayer's jumped free before they could get crushed.

They left the chainsaws imbedded in the demons and despite having no owner, the forestry equipment kept digging into the eldritch flesh of the things from beyond.

Buffy picked herself up and ran over to her friends. It was only when she looked back that she realized that the Elder's were both on the verge of dying.

Giles, yelling over the wails of the dying demons – "I think it's time we departed."

Both sides agreed and they both went their separate ways.

Buffy, pulling Larry up to his feet – "Show us the way. Now!"

Larry ran ahead, with Xander, Willow and Buffy tailing after them.

They turned corners with Larry leading them on until suddenly Larry disappeared as space winked around them.

Buffy, as they ran the same way – "This is it."

Whomp!

O-O-O-O

Buffy felt herself get picked up and pulled in an uncomfortable direction.

Xander, helping her onto her feet – "Come on, Buffy. Wake up."

Buffy's eyes flashed open and she found herself running along a hallway.

Buffy – "Man I hate those things."

Larry was similarly helping Willow to her feet or perhaps it was the other way around. Buffy didn't care to debate with herself and focused on putting one foot in front of the other while the mansion fell apart around them.

They ran out the front door and onto the lawn out front. Then they ran a little more, just to be safe.

Looking back, the mansion rippled and warped in the wake of the Elder's death. Until finally, it couldn't take the stress anymore and caved in like a house of cards.

The Scoobies, plus Larry, fell down on the lawn in exhaustion, happy that chapter of their lives was over.

Giles, the male version – "My lord. Buffy. What happened?"

Those on the ground turned around to find Giles and Kendra standing there on the lawn with them.

Buffy – "Oh, hey Giles. Meet Lara. Lara, Giles."

Lara, in Larry's body – "I think I'll go with Larry from now on."

Xander – "Good call."

Giles – "Uh… I'll return to my first question, what happened?"

O-O-O-O

The next day, at the library.

Xander, Willow and Buffy were still explaining the circumstances to Giles.

Giles – "So Larry was the murderer?"

Xander – "Larry and Lara were, yes."

Giles – "And my alternate gave them a potion to drink that had them swap bodies. Because they were gay and each wanted to occupy the other's body and exist in the other's world?"

The youngsters all nodded.

Giles – "And now she, or should I say he? They are left cavorting outside with the student body?"

Buffy – "Once we got rid of the Elder they started acting pretty normal. But I guess we should get him counseling or something."

Willow, agreeing – "Yes, that's a sound idea."

Giles – "And the two Elder were a male and female version of the same Elder?"

Xander – "I didn't get a good look but my guess is yeah, they were."

Giles – "This is truly unheard of. Obviously the Elder made a connection between our two realms to summon their own alternate but to what ends?"

Buffy, smirking – "I think it just wanted to get laid."

Giles, giving her a disapproving look – "Buffy. I'm asking a serious question."

Buffy – "I'm not joking. They were connected at the hip. Literally connected."

Willow, wincing – "I think she's right. I just didn't want to say anything."

Xander – "So it was having sex with itself? That's just so wrong."

Buffy, a little uncomfortably – "Yeah. So very wrong."

Willow to Xander – "I don't have to remind that you were getting pretty comfortable with Lexx, do I?"

Xander blinked at Willow.

Xander – "Willow. It wasn't like that. She was like the sister I never had."

Giles – "I always thought Xander would try to kill an alternate version of himself."

Xander, chuckling – "Nah. We got on like a house on fire."

Willow, chuckling too – "Yeah. With people running around screaming and toxic fumes. Oh! And Giles, the other Giles, she gave me some books to give to you."

Willow took two large blank books out of her bag and gave them to Giles.

There was a post-it note on top of the first one that read "To the most handsome man alive, hearts and kisses."

Giles – "The watchers manual and Slayer's handbook."

Buffy – "Hey, can I read that? I've always wanted to."

Giles took them both away before Buffy reached for them.

Giles – "Maybe some other time. I'll just read them first. I dare say there will be a lot we can learn from this experience."

Xander, getting a little impatient – "So is that all your questions answered?"

Giles, more interested in the books than the students – "For now. You may go to lunch now."

Xander and Willow both turned but Buffy stayed, obviously with something on her mind.

Giles – "Yes, Buffy?"

Buffy – "There's something I don't understand."

Giles – "After last night's adventures, I'm not surprised. What's puzzling you?"

Buffy – "The other you, she gave Larry and Lara a potion to drink and it made them swap bodies. How does that even work?"

Giles groaned and Buffy looked at him oddly.

Buffy – "What? It's a decent question."

Giles, sitting down – "Buffy. Go to lunch."

Buffy pouted then turned around and joined her friends.

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	17. 6a Winking at death

O-O-O-O

Scene – School library, morning.

Buffy and Willow walked in a carefree way into the library. When they saw Robson and Kendra standing inside with something akin to attention, they hesitated slightly. Giles was sitting down with a grim expression on his face.

Buffy – "Giles. I didn't know you were expecting relatives? I would have worn my good dress."

Giles beckoned them with a slight hand gesture. Buffy walked in easily and Willow followed her but wondered if she should have.

Willow – "Giles, aren't you scared of Snyder finding other watchers in the school library?"

Giles, shaking his head – "You'd be surprised how overlooked a watcher can be."

Buffy, in agreement – "It's the suits. No one questions a good suit."

Robson, the watcher overseeing the councils business in Sunnydale, walked forward slightly and addressed them.

Robson - "Ms Rosenburg, I'm not sure if this is the place for you."

Giles – "She should stay. She'll help with Buffy's cover story."

Buffy, confused – "Cover story? Since when did I need a cover story?"

Robson – "This Friday night, we need your help to lead strike forces in the town of Los Angeles. I'm afraid that Kendra will be unavailable at the time due to an almost identical affair in Cleveland."

Giles – "Which is why we need a cover story to give your mother."

Buffy, brightening up – "Lead a strike force? Hey, that sounds cool. But why?"

Robson, with noticeable discomfort – "Around the world, there have been reports from Seers, soothsayers, prophets and the like. We believe it is of an event foretold in Lambronazi's diaries."

Buffy – "Oh, her again. What's it this time?"

Robson – "A ten year period that ends in the extinction of the human race."

Buffy – "Wow. Makes me glad I'm no longer human. That's a relief."

Willow, obviously more shocked – "Hold on. Extinct? Are you sure?"

Robson – "Quite sure. But Lambronazi believed that this ten year period of drastic change was preventable if the right steps were taken."

Buffy, now smiling – "And don't tell me, she wrote down the steps."

Robson, most definitely not smiling – "No. She didn't. But we believe it has something to do with the recent string of visions that are filtering through the paranormal societies. The signs are conclusive that this Friday two elder gods will be setting moves into play in the city of Los Angeles and Cleveland."

Buffy – "Whoa. Did you just say Elder god? Again! But we just fought two a few weeks ago! How many of these guys are there?"

Giles – "Tens of Thousands, apparently. But generally speaking, they are spread throughout the entirety of existence and not just to our realm. This actually reminds me of something in Lambronazi's diaries. She talks of champions and gods, walking in twos. Firstly we have two Elder in our own town and now two more reports."

Buffy, not impressed – "I think I prefer the Noah's ark version better. With bunny rabbits and antelopes. Question. How are we going to find these Elder in LA and Cleveland? We got lucky in our hometown and those towns are just huge."

Robson – "The watchers council is expending a lot of man power on this task. You will have our full backing on both fronts. In fact, we already have investigation teams in the field as we speak."

Buffy – "Wow. That's cool. For a few years there I didn't actually think the watchers actually did anything, I mean, anything physical like action."

Robson – "While other watchers would be offended, I can understand how you would come to that conclusion. But we have some of the most highly trained soldiers at our disposal. Mostly ex-SAS."

Buffy, to Willow – "Is that good?"

Willow just shrugged – "I think so. Maybe you should ask Xander later. He's military man."

Giles – "The SAS are very capable. You can trust me on that matter, Buffy."

Kendra stepped forwards and held out her hand.

Kendra – "My flight is in a few hours. I just wanted to say goodbye before I left."

Buffy took their hand and shook it.

Buffy, after letting go – "Hey, you never know. We might see each other later."

Kendra – "Yes. We might. Robson?"

Robson, nodding towards Kendra – "Yes, we must be off. If you've any questions, ask Giles. I left him with a detailed portfolio of what to expect."

Giles, with a dry smile – "Perhaps a little too detailed."

Robson, sharing in the smile – "Perhaps not enough. But I expect to hear from both of you in the new week."

Giles, very dryly – "I wouldn't dream of dying of you. It would be unheard of."

Robson – "Good show. As I've said, we must be off so goodbye and goodluck."

Giles and Buffy nodded in farewell while Willow waved a hand very awkwardly, which she quickly put back down.

Xander came in as Robson and Kendra walked out.

Xander, still looking back at the taller Slayer's retreating form – "So what did I miss?"

Buffy, trying to smile convincingly – "Guess what? Two more Elder thingees."

The smile fell straight off Xander's face.

Xander – "What? Two new ones?"

Buffy and Willow both nodded.

Xander, groaning – "Oh, that's just great. You know, we should be getting hazard pay for this… or, you know, normal pay."

Buffy – "You're not helping this time."

Xander, blinking at her – "What do you mean?"

Willow – "The council is bringing in some muscle to help Buffy."

Buffy – "Yeah. The, uh, SAS?"

Xander blinked at her then snorted a little.

Xander, thinking she was joking – "The SAS? I'd like to see that. I didn't know the council ran her majesties military."

Giles – "She meant ex-SAS. The watchers council has quite a number of mercenaries in its employ."

Xander, noticeably impressed – "Really? Ex-SAS. That's wow."

Buffy – "So they're good then?"

Xander, nodding in a so-so way – "Yeah."

Buffy – "Cool cos I think get to lead them into battle. Isn't that cool?"

Xander, looking at Buffy oddly – "You get to LEAD them? Heh. Oh come on, I've got to go just to see that."

Buffy – "Why? What's so funny about that? You don't think a woman can lead soldiers?"

Xander – "Oh, I didn't say. I just.. Buffy, you're.. You're you. As far as I know you don't know the first thing about military protocol."

Buffy considered this and nodded.

Buffy, looking at her watch – "Yeah. You're right. So can you fill me in before maths?"

Xander snorted at her and shrugged.

Xander, still laughing slightly – "Hey sure. It's your funeral. But first we'll have to figure out what rank you have."

Buffy, thinking as she sat down – "The in-charge person?"

Xander, shaking his head – "You're probably talking about a captain but it's a little more complicated than that. You see, in the military there are ranks and each of these ranks has a distinct personality. If you act out of personality then the whole system fails."

Buffy frowned a little and Xander kept continuing.

Willow – "That doesn't sound very stable."

Xander – "Actually, it's the most stable system known to man under stress. Every psychological need in action is met by a particular rank. Firstly, the units are split up into soldiers and officers. Maybe they call them troopers in the SAS. I'm not sure about the terminology."

Buffy – "And what's the difference?"

Xander – "Lots. The officers tend to be richer for one. They also should hold certain aloofness and a larger than life quality to instill confidence into the soldiers. The soldiers always call them dopey names behind their backs and secretly hate them too. See, because they represent authority and you've got to have authority figures to resent. Umm, Giles, do they still pay their way into the officers club in England?"

Giles – "No, I uh, don't think so. I really couldn't say but I wouldn't think so."

Xander, to Buffy – "And we'll have to work on your thousand yard stare."

Buffy - "Excuse me, Xander, but this is getting silly. I'm sure they'll just tell us what they want me to kill."

Xander – "You know I always figured you for a lieutenant. Or maybe a wise-cracking corporal."

Buffy, flattered a little – "A lieutenant? Really? Lieutenant Summers. I can picture that."

Xander – "Oh yeah sure. You're lieutenant material for sure. Not quite a sergeant though. Of course, to be a lieutenant you'd have to be a little more distant, less talkative. Mind you, not quite as distant and less talkative as most officers."

Buffy – "Really? Why?"

Xander – "The lieutenant, traditionally, has to embody a calm coolness which in turn, cools and calms the squad in trying circumstances and stops them from shooting each other."

Willow – "You mean like Oz? He's cool and calm and sometimes very quiet."

Xander – "No. I really see him as more a private. It's written all over him. Private through and through that lad. Not like Buffy here."

Buffy – "You're making this up."

Xander – "I am not."

Buffy – "Really? Then why exactly would I make a better lieutenant than Oz?"

Xander looked left and right surreptitiously before speaking.

Xander – "Well, they don't talk about this but everyone knows it's true. See, the guys they pick as lieutenants, they all look like girls."

Buffy, chuckling – "Now I know you're making this up."

Xander, shaking his head – "I am so not. Get any movie. ANY movie. Find a lieutenant in it. He'll be a soft spoken, tall, lanky, pretty boy. I'm serious. In the middle of a war, everyone wants their mother and that's the lieutenant's role. Just like how it's a Sergeant's role to be their abusive father who knocks them into shape. Drill sergeants even more so."

Willow, cringing – "You're actually serious?"

Xander, nodded manically - "Yeah. I am. Just prove me wrong."

Willow, Buffy and Giles both gave each other looks.

Giles – "That can not be right."

Xander, smirking – "And I would've said the same thing about vampires a few years ago. But it's true. Check it out some time. I dare you."

O-O-O-O

By Saturday night, Buffy found herself in the back of a van and surrounded by six ex-SAS.

There was something she just had to ask them.

Buffy – "So which one of you is the lieutenant?"

The soldiers all turned her way, not saying anything for the first few seconds.

Random soldier – "We don't use ranks. We're not actually military anymore. We're ex-military."

Buffy – "Oh. Right. Sorry."

Buffy fell back into the awkward silence she had been in for most of the day. All her attempts for conversation fell flat after the first two sentences.

But it wasn't that the soldiers were talking between themselves much at all either. They all seemed to be in some sort of unspoken pre-combat trance. All of them except for the guy sleeping in the backseat with his walkman on.

Buffy sighed and tried to follow his example, leaning against the window and closing her eyes.

It had been a long day and there had been no sign at all of any foretold god-thing.

She only hoped Kendra was having more luck.

O-O-O-O

In Cleveland, things were hotting up.

Lightning streaked against the sky in vivid waves of indigo.

In the distance, a decently tall building was being viciously assaulted by a string of lightning strikes.

Kendra pointed towards the building with a finger.

Kendra – "Dat must be it."

The driver, nodding as he pulled the van out onto the street – "If I was a cataclysmic event about to happen, I'd know where I would be. Right under the freaky lightning."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Furniture warehouse.

Drusilla, wailing while she sat in Spike's lap – "It comes. It comes!"

Angel, obviously had enough of Drusilla's whining for one day – "I heard you the first time."

Spike, trying to comfort Drusilla – "Ssh, don't listen to the bad man. He's just cranky because he's not getting any."

Angel – "No, that's your excuse."

Drusilla, desperately – "You don't understand. It's coming."

Angel, impatiently – "Yes. We know. It's coming. But what is it?"

Drusilla – "It's your death. It's our death. It's something that shouldn't be."

Angel tilted his head and gave Drusilla his full attention.

Angel – "Keep talking."

Drusilla – "It hates you so. Why? Why does it hate you? Why does it hate my boys?"

Spike – "Could be any number of reasons."

Drusilla, shaking her head – "No. It knows us. It sees us like I see him."

Angel – "It's got the gift?"

Drusilla shook her head and moaned in pain again.

Drusilla – "It makes no sense. Such things shouldn't be. He's coming here to kill us. We must leave before he comes."

Spike to Angel – "How about it?"

Angelus frowned but considered the implications.

Angel – "Let's leave town for a few weeks and spend some time in LA. We'll keep a low profile for a while and that should give us some time to work out what this thing is."

Spike, stroking Drusilla's hair – "You hear that? We're going to tinsel town. You like tinsel, don't you?"

Drusilla nodded a little and rested against her childe as she calmed down a little.

O-O-O-O

Back in Cleveland, a swarm of council employed mercenaries marched up towards the entrance of a large hotel. Porters and the like saw their approach and decided to hurriedly evacuate.

As they approached the front desk, the receptionist stared at them in confusion.

Receptionist - "What? What do you think you're doing here?"

An MP5 totting mercenary pointed to his vest which had SWAT written on it in bright white letters.

Merc – "Lady. Can't you read? We're SWAT. The hotel's under attack. Get the hell out of here."

The receptionist wisely left, although slightly hesitant at leaving her post.

Some of the other fake-SWAT helped other innocents away from the scene.

Kendra, to another soldier – "It will happen here."

He raised an eyebrow at her – "How do you know?"

Kendra – "I can feel it."

He shrugged - "Sure. I'll buy that."

Then he turned to the other soldiers and yelled out – "Everyone set up here. We're in ground zero. Get those charges in place."

He turned back to Kendra with a smirk – "How do you think it'll like having a hotel fall on it? Should put in a stink, I say."

Then in the middle of the foyer, there was a bright, quick flash and everyone stopped to look at it.

There was another and then another one and several of the soldiers turned to a bookish, conventional looking watcher.

One of the soldiers asked the watcher – "Is that supposed to happen?"

The watcher – "No. It shouldn't. It's opening early."

Another soldier – "What do you mean early?"

Watcher, gulping – "I mean now!"

The mercenary who seemed to be in command gave himself a second to scan the scene before snapping out orders. Kendra on the other hand took that second to pull a large hatchet out of somewhere.

Mercenary – "Get your shit together! Get ready to expect anything! Burke! Montague! Get those people out of here."

Then the room became flooded in an insanely turquoise light as a giant blob of energy popped into existence in the middle of the foyer.

It started out as a small, almost fly-sized pea but quickly grew and spat out lightning which tore away at mortar and light sockets.

Mercs in the room shouted commands but nothing could be heard over the roar of the anomaly. Everyone backed off as the jellyfish of exotic energies threatened to fill the room with its mass.

Then, like nothing had happened, it shrank into nothing. Outside, the lightning ceased and despite the ringing in everyone's ears, there was little to be heard.

In the middle of the room, there was a perfectly spherical dome cut out of the floor. Maybe burned was a better description than cut. The edges were singed and the air around it was warped with the heat rising out of the hole.

Then very slowly, a figure groaned and rose out of the pit in the floor.

It was humanoid and seemed to be wearing some sort of biker gear inspired from a sci-fi movies. The helmet it wore, the boots, the gloves, they all looked very man-made and modern.

The figure's helmet turned from left to right and took note of the mercenaries.

Figure – "Ah, monkey poop."

Mercenary leader – "OPEN FIRE!"

The mercenaries did open fire and the figure got shocked around considerably but stayed on his feet.

Then the biker from beyond pulled out his own gun and let loose with a stream of rapid-fire blue laser blasts, which toppled every merc it hit.

A hatchet flew out of nowhere and hit the gun. It stopped working and the figure looked down at it. The gun started glowing in a disconcerting way and the figure tossed it to the side.

Having a good respect for dangerous equipment, soldiers left and right of the sliding gun jumped out of the way as if it was a grenade.

Similar to a grenade, it exploded in a sparkle of blinding blue and emberous red fireworks.

When everyone's vision cleared, the mysterious figure was nowhere to be seen.

Outside, there were some shots fired but they were quickly silenced and the soldiers ran out to investigate.

By the time they did, one of their vans had been stolen. It drove away and turned the corner before anyone thought of going after it.

Random soldier - "What the bloody bollox was that! It stole our van!"

Kendra knelt down and looked at one of the fallen soldiers on the outside. They seemed to be a little concussed but it didn't look that life-threatening.

Kendra – "Dat was strange."

O-O-O-O

Back in LA, Buffy was dead asleep in the van full of soldiers.

Buffy, mumbling in her sleep – "Mus' 'ill'em all. 'ummy 'umans."

The soldier next to her shuffled along the seat away from her.

The car phone buzzed and the driver pushed a button and the speaker phone turned on.

Driver - "Talk to me."

The phone – "Teams in Cleveland have made contact with the envisioned creature. It's not an Elder. At least not one we know of. It could pass for human."

Buffy, now very much awake – "Did they kill it? Were there any casualties?"

Phone voice – "Some serious injuries from ricochet and debris and the like but no recorded deaths so far. The creature escaped capture. It appeared to be very bullet proof. Its arrival was preceded by violent lightning strikes above its physical entrance into our world."

Buffy and some of the soldiers looked out the windows for lightning but the night sky was cloudless and lightning free.

Buffy – "You do know that there hasn't been any lightning all night, right?"

The phone voice paused for a while before speaking.

Phone – "Keep your eyes open. We're expecting it any minute now."

Then the phone hung up and Buffy rested back in her chair.

Buffy, sighing – "I'm going to back to sleep."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else in Hollywood, one of LA's most respected demons sat on a wooden throne and idly stroked one of the small barbs on his chin. Physically, he was a giant and almost human looking but more importantly, his eyes held a razor like intelligence that most demons seemed to lack. He had the look of someone who could break your head like an egg but still have the capacity for existential thought.

Before him, a small flock of vastly viler and skinnier red skinned demons were kneeling before him. One of them wasn't kneeling as he was busy trundling in a large rectangular wooden box with some sort of green growth on the front.

One of the kneeling demons, "Oh beneficent Nasdaq of the Enron clan, we beseech for your aid in a paltry matter. Our payment will be this unique and no doubt priceless artefact from the town of Sunnydale."

Nasdaq got off his throne and waved a bored hand in some gesture the lesser demons didn't understand.

Nasdaq - "Yeah yeah, whatever. What is this thing?"

The speaking demon stood up with a frown - "You mean, you don't know? But legend tells that you have wisdom to rival the stars themselves."

Nasdaq, now in directly into the speaking demon's face - "Which makes me seriously wonder why I've never seen anything like this. I can practically smell Hollywood magic coming off this thing. I think just perhaps you're trying to scam me."

lesser demon - "No, we are not. We-we would never dream of such treachery with the likes of the great Nasdaq, the warlord of a thousand wires –"

Nasdaq, cutting them off – "Yes, yes. I'm fabulous. But this artefact, as you call it, it doesn't befit the boon you ask. Do you know what the street value of mysterious boxes is?"

The other demons shook their head.

Nasdaq – "Very very little. Do you know why? No wait. Answer me this. Did you try to open it?"

The other demons all shook their head.

Nasdaq – "Because it could explode! Or it could be full of flesh-eating spiders. There are a thousand and one reasons not to open it. Demons, generally, have very poor temperaments. This means that when they make something, it's usually made to cause intense pain and or death. Do you catch my drift?"

The demons all nodded obediently.

Nasdaq – "So you will leave it with me. I will have it studied and if it's worth anything at all, I'll call you."

One of the demons – "But –"

Nasdaq brutally punched them in the face, knocking them out.

Nasdaq, now smiling – "I'll call you."

The other demons considered this and then decided to leave, taking their fallen comrade with them.

He kept smiling as the demons left. Then he rubbed his hands together as he approached the box.

Nasdaq, looking at the box – "Now let's have a look at you."

He looked the box over and tapped the green egg shell cover on the front. He heard something odd and leaned in, putting his ear to the green front. He tapped the egg shell again and frowned.

Talons tore through the egg shell from the inside and latched onto Nasdaq's face.

He screamed and tried to push away from the box but the talons pulled him back in and his face went through the thick egg shell and got stuck inside the box. He still struggled but couldn't get pull himself free. After half a minute, he eventually turned limp. The box and Nasdaq fell over sideways, which his head still trapped inside.

After that, the only sounds in the room were the sickening sounds of a demon's face being eaten off.

O-O-O-O

Back in Cleveland, at an interstate train ticket centre.

Helmeted figure, in a very human sounding voice – "Can I have a ticket to Sunnydale?"

The person stared at the loony wearing safety gear indoors then looked towards their computer.

"That will be a hundred and sixty five dollars and fifty cents please."

The helmeted figure pushed two hundred dollar bills under the glass.

Helmet head – "Keep the change. I hate shrapnel."

O-O-O-O

The sun went up, the sun went down and Buffy managed to get back to Sunnydale.

Not only did she get back to Sunnydale but back to the Bronze, where she wore a halter top that was half a kilt in a previous life. The skirt she was wearing was the other half of the kilt.

Willow seemed happy to see her while Xander and Cordelia seemed at least a little relieved. Oz, however, held his face in neutral.

Willow, hugging Buffy – "So how bad was it?"

Buffy – "It was horrible. So very very horrible."

Willow, cringing – "I didn't want to hear that."

Buffy, chuckling – "But it was horrible. I was stuck in a van for almost twenty four hours and there wasn't enough room for any of us to sleep properly. It was soooo boring."

Xander – "So nothing happened? It was a bust?"

Buffy, nodding – "For me it was. In Cleveland, Kendra faced off with a demon shooting paralysing beams. Weird huh?"

Willow – "Paralysing beams?"

Buffy, nodded some more – "Yeah. That's what I thought. What sort of scourge of humanity paralyses their victims? What they really should've had were beams that cooks human flesh right off the bone. But that's just my opinion."

Oz – "So Kendra is fine?"

Buffy – "Yup. Although they lost the demon. It must've been a slippery one. No one knows where it would be by now, uh, yeah, no one knows where it would be now."

Xander – "Buffy. Why did you say that twice?"

Buffy, sniffing the air – "Umm. No reason. You were saying?"

Buffy's attention obviously wasn't on the conversation. Something in the room was setting her nerves on edge.

Willow, trying to act calm – "So did you do any homework?"

Buffy, looking across the club over the top of her glasses – "A little. Umm, something's off."

Xander, quietly – "Yeah. We're being watched."

Cordelia looked around, alarmed – "We are?"

Xander, glaring at her – "Cordy, when someone tells you you're being watched, you shouldn't automatically scan the room like that."

Cordelia – "What? You say we're being watched. I wanted to know who's doing it. And are they looking at me in particular? Because they could be a talent scout. And Buffy, can you stop sniffing Xander like that? People don't do that in polite society."

Buffy stopped sniffing Xander and back off a little.

Buffy – "Sorry, it's just, Xander, are you using a new cologne?"

Xander, a little confused – "No."

Buffy – "Are you sure? Because you smell kinda weird."

Willow – "Weird how?"

Buffy, sceptically – "Like not with the human."

Everyone backed off a little from Xander.

Xander – "What? Hey, guys. I'm.. this is ridiculous. I'm not a demon. Okay?"

Willow, hiding behind Buffy – "What is it?"

Xander, gaping at Willow – "Willow! I'm me, I'm Xander."

Buffy, frowning – "I'm.. not sure. I swear I could smell vampire on him for a second there. Xander, you haven't been.."

Xander, raising an eyebrow at Buffy – "Been what?"

Buffy – "You haven't been making out with Drusilla again, have you?"

Xander, shocked – "No! I-I can't believe you'd ask that."

Buffy – "Then where'd that smell come from then?"

Xander – "You're probably smelling yourself. You're a vampire and you're right there."

Buffy, shaking her head and with her hands on her hips – "Nope. I'm afraid not. Xander, what have you been doing?"

Xander – "N-nothing."

Cordelia, in tears – "Xander. I can't believe you!"

With that Cordelia ran out of the bronze and Xander watched her go with his mouth hanging open.

Xander – "Buffy. Look what you did."

Buffy – "Hey, I'm sorry but I'm not the one making mooshy face with vampires. Uh, hang on."

Then Buffy sniffed the air and frowned.

Buffy – "Maybe it was Cordelia who kissing vampires."

Xander, shook his head emphatically – "No, Buffy. No one here is kissing vampires except you."

Buffy – "Hey, I don't do that… anymore."

Xander, explaining – "I meant how you're a vampire and someone might kiss you."

Buffy, a little more pleased – "Oh, uh, that's okay then. I guess."

Xander – "Umm. I guess I should run after Cordelia."

Buffy – "Yeah. Uh, sorry."

Xander, sighing – "Just don't make a habit of it."

O-O-O-O

Cordelia ran out of the Bronze, already with tears streaming down her face.

How could she be so stupid? She fell for Xander Harris, perhaps the lamest, most unpopular, most unfashionable guy in school. He wasn't even smart enough to warrant the title of nerd.

And what did Xander do? Cheat on her. HER? Cordelia Chase, heir to the Chase fortune and the hottest ice queen of mean Sunnydale has ever seen. And he cheated on her with a VAMPIRE!

Now that she thought about that it was kinda ridiculous. Xander hated vampires. He REALLY hated vampires.

Although, there was that thing about how he hated her and…

Then all thoughts of Buffy being a lying bitch fled from her mind as she found herself in a dark alleyway and face to face with two vampire thugs with hungry grins on their faces.

Vampire #1 – "Aren't you a pretty thing?"

Vampire #2, chuckling to the other – "She's got a pretty mouth."

Cordelia – "Uh, just go away and I'll forget I ever saw you."

The two vampires looked at each other and both decided that this was a fair proposal.

Then vampire #1 pushed Cordelia in the forehead, pushing her backwards into some trash.

Xander, coming up the alley – "Hey! No one touches girlfriend like that except me. No wait, that didn't sound quite right."

The two vampires laughed at the new comer. Xander took the opportunity to kick one in the nuts. This just made the other vampire laugh.

Vampire #2 – "I can't believe you let him do that."

Vampire #1 glared at vampire #2 as he bent over in agony.

Then Xander grabbed vampire #1's head and twisted it one hundred and eighty degrees, breaking their neck.

Vampire #2 stared in shock for a second then his game face turned on.

Vampire#2 – "Hey! You can't do THAT?"

Xander – "Make me stop then."

Cordelia had been watching from the trash bins and gotten herself up, back onto her feet.

Cordelia, in clear concern – "Xander. You don't even have a stake!"

Xander ignored her and punched the vampire in the face. It fell back against the wall, a little dazed.

Vampire – "That hurt.. I'll kill you!"

Xander – "Idiot."

The vampire rushed forward with a swing towards Xander. Xander ducked under it easily and came up behind the vampire and grabbed it from behind. While he held it from behind, he wedged his knee up behind its back and pulled it's head back, snapping something important in its spine. Then he let them go and the vampire fell to ground, truly dead to the world.

Cordelia – "Xander. That was amazing!"

Xander replied by taking her into his arms and mashing his mouth against hers.

Cordelia was surprised at first but found it exhilarating and reciprocated.

Xander picked her up with both hands under her ass and pressed her back into the wall.

Cordelia, as Xander led an expedition of kisses down past the cleavage of her shirt - "Xander. Slow down a little."

Xander, already knowing the answer – "You don't like this?"

Cordelia, licking her lips – "No, it's not that."

Xander eased up a little and moved upwards a little, hungrily nibbling around her neck.

"HEY!"

Then Cordelia and Xander were knocked down by someone else and all three of them went tumbling along the floor.

All three of them then rolled a few times, with Cordelia screaming her head off in the middle.

Finally Cordelia ran out of air and Buffy, Willow and Oz finally got a good look at the situation.

Xander – "Hey! This was my save. Get your own damsel in distress."

And an entirely different Xander – "What?"

Cordelia looked back at forth between the two Xander's and tried to struggle free but one of the Xander's was keeping her in place.

Cordelia – "I'm very confused."

Xander, the one on bottom – "Oh, I don't know. I think I could work with this."

The Xander on top got up, pulling Cordelia up with him. Then the Xander on bottom kipped up and the differences between the two became very apparent.

One Xander was definitely younger, wore mostly primal colours and was really really confused.

The other was older, had an eye patch and was covered in black leathers. He also had a perpetual smirk which would get old very quickly.

Cordelia – "What the hell?"

Older Xander – "Okay, everyone, just stay calm. There's a perfectly good explanation for this."

Younger Xander – "Yeah! you're a shape changing freak who's trying to get with my girlfriend!"

Older Xander – "No. It's not that at all."

Willow – "You're from the future?"

Older Xander, blinking one eye – "Actually, yes. That's right. I'm from the future. Good guess, Will."

Buffy, suddenly holding up a stake – "And you're a vampire!"

Cordelia – "He's a vampire!"

The Xander in black held up his hands in a pacifistic stance and backed off a little, trying to look harmless.

Vampire Xander – "Whoa! Hold on there. It's not what you think. I'm like Angel. Sort of. I'm a good vampire. Honestly! I'm on the patch."

He tapped his eyepatch and chuckled.

Everyone took a moment to take this in.

Cordelia – "You're a good vampire?"

Vampire Xander, nodding in a so-so way – "You might have noticed that I wasn't biting into your tender, juicy neck right then."

Human Xander – "Yeah. You were just making out with someone else's girlfriend!"

Vampire Xander – "How do you know that I'm not dating Cordelia in the future? huh? Or hey, I could've even married her."

Human Xander looked at his Vampire counterpart for a second and shook his head.

Human Xander – "Nope. You're lying."

Vamp Xander – "Yeah. I am. Cordelia died like ages ago."

Cordelia – "WHAT!"

Vamp Xander, shrugging – "It happens to the best of us. Oh and Cordy, don't go and live in LA. Don't even visit. You'll thank me for it later."

Buffy – "Okay. Let's say you're a good vampire. Let's just put that on the table. We should go somewhere and take a nice long talk."

Vamp Xander – "Sure."

Human Xander – "Not my place."

Vampire Xander, smirking at his human counterpart – "Oh, you're worried about giving me an invitation, aren't you? Problem is, I don't need one. Vampires don't need an invitation to enter their own homes. But you don't need to worry about me coming into your place and killing you. If I kill you then I would cease to exist. Unless I turned you and then hey, that has possibilities."

A few seconds of concerned looks later, Vamp Xander blurted out – "Hey, I'm joking. Seriously. Turning yourself would be weird even for a vampire. It would make me my own dad. I'd turn out all inbred."

Willow – "Let's go to the Bronze. Then we can get to the bottom of this. But um, what about them?"

Willow pointed to the two broken vampires on the ground.

Vampire Xander, walking towards the bronze – "Forget about them. High noon will clean them up."

Human Xander, following – "One thing I have to know, who the hell turns us?"

Vamp Xander groaned a little – "You don't want to know."

Human Xander – "It wasn't Buffy, was it?"

Vamp Xander snorted a little – "Buffy? How would Buffy do it? Everyone knows Slayers can't be vampires. It's biologically impossible."

Everyone stopped to give him a weird look.

Vamp Xander, not understanding – "What?"

Everyone kept giving him the same weird look and he started getting a little concerned.

Vamp Xander – "No, really. What is it?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	18. 6b The echo effect

O-O-O-O

The Scoobies, plus one Xander from the future, all walked back into Bronze.

Vamp Xander immediately walked up to the bar. He slapped some bills down on the table and made an order.

"Scotch. Straight. Leave the bottle."

The barman chuckled – "Nice costume Xander but I'm not selling you any liquor."

Vamp Xander groaned and turned back to the Scoobies.

Vamp Xander to his human self, as he dropped himself down in a chair – "I officially hate you now."

The other Scoobies sat down, on the other side of the table.

Buffy – "So what's your deal?"

Vamp Xander – "What's my deal? What's your deal? You're not supposed to be a vamp. How did THAT happen?"

Buffy – "Umm, Angelus turned me."

Vamp Xander gave her a discerning look then looked at the other Scoobies, sniffing a little as he did – "And so why aren't you evil then? Did Willow give you a soul?"

Willow blinked at him – "Huh?"

Vamp Xander – "Oh so Willow hasn't even done any magic yet? I didn't think I'd be THAT early."

Willow – "Me? Magic? I can't do magic."

Vamp Xander suddenly cracked up and thumped the table a few times as he did with his fist.

Vamp Xander, still laughing a little – "Oh my god, this is slaying me. I totally forgot how lame Willow used to be."

Willow – "Huh-Hey! I'm sitting right here!"

Vamp Xander, calming down a little – "Yeah, sorry. It's just wow. You now and you in the future, it's amazing how much you change."

Willow – "I-I don't become a vampire too, do I?"

Vamp Xander – "No but don't knock it until you try it. But what's Buffy's deal? Did someone else give her a soul? Jenny maybe? Hey are Jenny and Giles still alive?"

Buffy – "Jenny died a few weeks ago. But does something happen to Giles?"

Vamp Xander – "No. Not for a while. You don't have to worry. So come on, tell me, what's the deal?"

Buffy shrugged – "I don't really know. After I turned, I just didn't really want to hurt my friends. So I didn't."

Willow – "It seems that her Slayer half has negated her vampire half. At least a little."

Vamp Xander, studying Buffy – "This is bizarre. I've known more than a few Slayers but never even heard of one turned into a vampire. I guess the process didn't take very well and you came out half-baked."

Buffy glared at him.

Vamp Xander – "Hey, I'm not insulting you. Some people just don't turn very well. Like you should've seen Harmony after she got turned. She was pathetic."

Cordelia – "Harmony? A vampire?"

Vamp Xander, nodding – "I know. The strange thing was it didn't change her personality at all. Or maybe not so strange when you consider her personality. I heard she became a secretary."

Buffy – "I don't care about that. Tell us about you. What's your deal?"

Vamp Xander – "Okay, I'll lay it out for you. In eight or so years in the future, there's a war and humanity loses. I was sent back in time to stop that happening."

Buffy – "I think I saw that movie. But I was asking about how come you're not evil?"

Vamp Xander – "Oh, that! Well, technically I am still evil. Despicably evil, I might add. But Willow cast this mojo on me, something called a geas. It means I have to do whatever her bidding is."

Willow – "I cast a spell? On you? And you have to do whatever I say?"

Vamp Xander nodded.

Willow – "Okay then, bark like a dog."

Vamp Xander, not barking – "Oh, isn't that the sweetest thing? I guess it doesn't work for this Willow. So no more barking like a dog for me."

Human Xander – "So that means he can do whatever he wants now. Buffy, I think you should stake him now."

Vamp Xander – "Hey, just hold on there. Willow's spell also stops me from doing anything too evil. Besides, if you stake me you'll just lose all the juicy future knowledge I've got trapped in my noodle."

Willow – "I sound pretty cool in the future. Hey, am I still dating Oz in the future?"

Willow and Oz gave each other the briefest look then Willow shook her head.

Willow – "No, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

Vamp Xander, sighing – "Actually, you're not."

Willow – "Oh god. I'm not dating you, am I?"

Vamp Xander snorted – "Ah, no. Not that I would mind but I've got my own girlfriend, as do you."

Cordelia – "Does Oz die too?"

Vamp Xander – "No. Actually, he made it all the way to end. Last I heard, he was still stuck in Paris playing viva la resistance."

Oz – "Paris?"

Vamp Xander, nodding – "And no, you never learn French."

Buffy – "How did you travel back in time?"

Vampire Xander paused a little and thought about how to answer that.

Vamp Xander – "Uh, that's a little complicated. Long story short, my girlfriend sent me back."

Human Xander – "Your girlfriend? So she's a witch like Willow?"

Vamp Xander, chuckling – "Uh, no. That's not a very good description of her at all. Witch just sounds so.. human. You know?"

Human Xander – "Oh so she's a vampire too. I was kind of expecting that."

Vamp Xander put on an unsettling grin and Human Xander squinted at him.

Human Xander – "She's not a vampire? Then what? A demon?"

Vamp Xander chuckled – "Nope. She's even worse. She's an old one."

Everyone looked at the laughing vampire oddly.

Willow – "You mean an elder god?"

Buffy – "You're joking, right? You can't .. Even if you wanted to.. that's physically impossible."

Vamp Xander – "Physically impossible? Why?"

Buffy – "Cos you know, the parts don't.. They're huge."

Vamp Xander – "Oh! Yeah, I should've mentioned how she took human form. She's not huge at all. She's slim actually. Kinda like a ballerina."

Willow, frowning – "Elder can't take human form."

Vamp Xander raised an eyebrow – "Well, she did. And I'm thankful too. She once showed me a picture of what she used to look like. I don't mind a girl with some meat on her bones but I put my foot down when they pass a metric tonne."

Willow – "Let's just say that an Elder took human form, why would she would be your girlfriend?"

Vamp Xander shrugged a little – "Truthfully? I think she was just bored. It's not even like we have sex. Much."

Willow – "But she would be evil."

Vamp Xander – "I never really considered her evil. Just very brutal and uncaring."

Human Xander – "That kind of sounds like evil to me."

Vamp Xander – "Then you're not using that sparkling imagination god gave you."

Buffy – "Question. When you came back in time, you didn't happen to appear in Cleveland? Like last Friday night? And get shot at by a bunch of guys with guns?"

Vamp Xander blinked at her.

Vamp Xander – "Yeah. I did. How did you know that?"

Buffy looked at Willow – "I think we should tell Giles about all this."

O-O-O-O

A small tribe of scabrous red skinned demons were waiting in the sewers, outside a large shiny reinforced metal door which looked out of place in the wretched scene.

One of the demons – "He's not home."

The demon next to that one, impatiently - "Knock again."

They knocked and the door opened slightly. Not seeing the harm in it, they pushed the door open to the room beyond.

The knocking demon, calling out – "Nasdaq?"

One of the more timid demons – "We should leave. This doesn't smell right."

The knocking demon – "He's probably out the front. We'll just walk in and wait for him. Bring in the present."

The red demons all walked in and behind them, one of their numbers trundled in a small safe on a roller.

The timid one – "This doesn't feel right."

The knocker – "Shut up Lenny, I know what I'm doing."

Then the large shiny metal door they came through slammed shut. All them turned and found the remains of Nasdaq of the Enron clan standing there, wielding a very large sword.

The knocker – "What the! What happened to his face? It looks like -"

He didn't get to finish that sentence as his head got cut off quite suddenly.

O-O-O-O

Both Xander's in unison – "Hey G-man."

The Scoobies were standing outside Giles' apartment and were waiting to be let in.

Giles – "Is he safe?"

Buffy, shrugging – "We think so."

Human Xander – "I'm not so sure. He looks a little shifty."

Giles – "Very well then. Come in, Xanders."

Vamp Xander walked in and immediately walked over to Giles desk and took out some of Giles' "medicinal" scotch. He twisted the cap off and slugged it back. By the time Giles realised what the vampire was doing, there wasn't enough time to complain as the bottle was empty.

Vamp Xander, letting his eyes refocus – "Ahh! That takes the edge off a little."

Giles – "I should expect so. That was twelve year old single malt."

Vamp Xander, smiling – "Cool. Got any more?"

Giles – "Not for you, no."

Buffy, patting Giles on the shoulder – "Sorry. Should have warned you about his manners. They need a little work."

Vamp Xander belched loudly and chuckled at himself.

Vamp Xander – "It bet it tastes just as good coming back up, ey, Old man?"

Giles – "Good lord. Buffy, where did you find this wretched creature?"

Buffy – "He's what appeared in Cleveland."

Giles stared at Vamp Xander as they wandered off into his kitchen, no doubt looking for something else alcoholic in nature.

Giles – "Buffy. That can't be. What appeared in Cleveland was remarkably bullet proof."

Vamp Xander, yelling from the kitchen – "That was body armour, nimrod! And hey, I'm borrowing some blood."

Giles, to his own self – "I don't follow. Why would anyone send Xander back in time?"

Vamp Xander came back in the room with two packs of blood.

Vamp Xander – "Because there was no one else they could send."

Willow – "Because the process would kill a human?"

Vamp Xander – "No. Because there was no one else. And before you say it Cordy, I get how sad that is."

Cordelia – "I wasn't going to say anything."

Vamp Xander – "Yeah right. I know how your mind thinks."

Buffy to Giles – "He was sent back to save the world."

Vamp Xander – "God, I wish I was drunk right now."

Giles, to Vamp Xander – "You came back through the Cleveland Hellmouth?"

Vamp Xander – "Sort of, yeah. Lily said it was the best place to launch me from. Although, she forgot to mention how doing it would open the hellmouth up. I damn near shat my dacks for a moment there."

Oz – "Who's Lily?"

Vamp Xander, sucking on a blood pack – "Oh, that's just what I call my girlie. Her actual name sounds like a middle-eastern country so I don't use that. Hey, Giles, what is this stuff? It tastes great."

Giles – "I believe it is pig."

Vamp Xander sniffed it again – "No it's not. Pig doesn't taste like this. Otter doesn't taste this good. Hell, even some Slayers don't taste this good. I guess maybe it has something to do with how it's not diseased. See, in the future almost everyone's been hit with at least some sort of biological weapon."

Buffy, glaring at him – "And how would know how Slayers taste!"

Vamp Xander, "It's not what you think. In the battle of Boston, I got poisoned pretty badly. A Slayer gave me some blood to get me back on my feet. Worked a treat too."

Buffy – "Vampires can't get poisoned. Can they, Giles?"

Giles – "Actually they can. But it's not normally fatal."

Buffy pouted – "Well, you should've told me that before hand. I thought I was all invulnerable to poison."

Oz – "I'm thinking. We didn't ask what he come back to save us from."

Vamp Xander – "Oh, uh.. Well.. We just call them the face-eaters."

Cordelia – "Face eaters? Why?"

Vamp Xander, rolling his eyes – "Because they eat your face off. Some people, I don't know."

Cordelia – "Hey, you don't have to be snotty. I was just asking."

Vamp Xander – "And I didn't ask to be catapulted back in time. And I didn't expect to come back to the land before time and find Buffy as a vampire. I didn't ask for any of this."

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Vamp Xander, growling – "I said I didn't ASK FOR THIS?"

Giles – "No, I mean, you weren't expecting Buffy to be a vampire? Why not?"

Vamp Xander, groaning – "Because she's not supposed to be. That's why? This is kinda creeping me out. And I'm a vampire!"

Buffy – "Yeah, I don't get that."

Vamp Xander – "Lily explained this to me but I wasn't really listening at the time. She was explaining why she couldn't go back in time herself. I'll explain it as best as I can."

He poured a handy bowl of popcorn over onto a lounge table.

Giles – "Pardon me but I was eating that."

Vamp Xander – "Shut up. I'm trying to explain something here. Now just imagine that the popcorn is the timeline and that every piece of popcorn represents an event in space-time."

Vamp Xander picked up a piece of popcorn and held it up – "And this piece is when I lost my virginity to the sluttiest Slayer of all time."

Buffy – "HEY? Don't call me a slut!"

Vamp Xander, giving her a confused look – "I wasn't talking about you. Why would you think.. Oh my god! Did you boink the other me? Hey, me! You lucky dog!"

Vamp Xander threw the piece of popcorn at his other self, hitting him painfully in the eye.

Vamp Xander – "Okay, so that was a bad example. But we all get the idea, don't we? The popcorn is like the sand in the hourglass, like the days of our lives. Now this is how time travel works. Time and space are interchangeable."

Cordelia – "And that means what?"

Willow – "That space can represent time and time can represent space. It takes time to move through space and without space, time has no meaning."

Vamp Xander – "Exactly."

Willow – "But I don't see why you're using popcorn as in example. Surely you should be poking two holes in a piece of paper and then folding the paper and sticking a pencil through it. That's what they always do on TV."

Vamp Xander – "You're thinking of a wormhole. I'm using an unbound temporal displacement model."

Willow – "For over ten years? But that's insane. There's no basis that matter can even be unbound from the time stream. Even if it could, the power requirements would be immense and how would you propel it? We're talking radically experimental physics here."

Vamp Xander – "Power wasn't a problem with the help of a certain Summers and Lily apparently has had eons of experience screwing up the time stream. Though, I've never seen her do it before."

Human Xander, rubbing his pop-corned eye – "The funny thing is I'm actually understanding what he's saying."

Cordelia – "Really?"

Oz, to Cordelia – "You don't watch star trek?"

Cordelia – "Uh, no. Should I?"

Vamp Xander hemmed for attention – "Now, we all understand what the popcorn is, don't we? Now, this glass represents me in the future."

He placed a glass down on the table.

Vamp Xander – "And as I travel backwards, I caused ripples in the timeline as I moved through it and displaced certain events."

Vamp Xander slid the glass along the table, knocking popcorn out of the way as it pushed its way through.

Then he picked up the popcorn bowl and stuck it on the table.

Vamp Xander – "And this is Lily. She might be a picture of weight-watching perfection in person but in the time line, she's a huffalump. See, she's got a lot of what she calls temporal mass. But a vampire like me has very little, apparently even less than the average human. The reason Lily didn't go back personally to fix this mess is that this would happen if she did."

He pushed the bowl sideways and almost cleared all of the popcorn off the table.

Giles, about the popcorn – "I say, could you be a little more tidy please?"

Buffy – "So you're trying to tell me that the only reason I'm a vampire is because you came back in time?"

Vamp Xander – "Looks like. Because you sure as hell weren't one when I last time saw you."

Cordelia – "But that doesn't make sense. You don't change things just by travelling back in time. How do you know you didn't just appear in the wrong dimension? That could happen, right?"

Vamp Xander – "Well, maybe. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Even time travel can't escape that law. An object can't move through a medium without changing it. This is true in all things."

Human Xander – "Unless you're a ninja."

Vamp Xander, without missing a beat – "That goes without saying. Which is why I didn't say it."

Giles – "Excuse me but this makes no sense whatsoever. There have been prophecies written specifically on the situation of Buffy being a vampire. If what you say is true, then Buffy isn't the prophesized one we've been waiting for."

Vamp Xander – "Huh? Prophecies of her becoming a vampire? That doesn't make any sense. I didn't hear anything about this last time around."

Willow, realising something – "No. Actually it makes perfect sense."

Buffy – "No it doesn't. This whole thing doesn't make any sense."

Willow, picking up a piece of popcorn – "But it does. Tell me, what is a prophecy? It's a ripple in the timeline. It's like an echo for a sound that hasn't been made yet. When Xander moved back in time that actually caused Lambronazi to have those visions about Buffy. In the previous timeline, there probably was no prophecy about the Slayer turned vampire. In fact, maybe the only reason people get visions of future events at all is because of this phenomena."

Giles – "I must admit that is an intriguing argument you've brought up. And if this vampire truly is from the future, then perhaps he could answer some burning questions for me."

Vamp Xander – "Shoot, old man."

Giles – "Can you just call me Giles, please?"

Vamp Xander – "I'll think about it."

Giles moved over to his bedroom and came back out with some notes.

Giles – "Now you obviously wouldn't have heard of this in your time line but in ours, there was a Slayer called Lambronazi. She was a prophet of considerable vision but lacking dearly in sanity. I've been trying to make sense of her works but have run into some difficulty."

Vamp Xander – "So what do you want me to do about it?"

Giles – "Lambronazi seems to have given certain important characters in Buffy's life with titles. She named Buffy the abomination and now that I've met you, I'm quite certain you're the one she refers to as the blinded fool. It became obvious once I saw the eye-patch."

Both Xanders seemed offended by this but for different reasons.

Human Xander – "Hang on. You mean he's in the prophecy but I'm not? But that's so unfair. He's not even human!"

Giles – "Actually, the title could quite possibly belong to both of you. Lambronazi refers to Buffy as the Abomination in not only her period as a vampire but as a human too."

Human Xander – "Yeah but come on. It's so obvious that he's going to get the glory. He's just like me but with super strength."

Vamp Xander – "Don't be too hard on yourself buddy. Hey, if it makes you feel better I saved the world a few times when I was human. But I haven't done once since I was turned."

Human Xander – "Really? You're not just saying that?"

Vamp Xander – "Actually the first time I saved the world was really funny. I didn't even tell anyone about it. They thought I stayed home and did my homework."

Human Xander – "Homework? Yeah, like that would happen."

Willow gave Human Xander a look of horror.

Human Xander, conversationally back pedalling – "What I meant was, uh, I wouldn't be doing home work if I had to go out and save the world, would I?"

Oz, calming Willow – "He's got his priorities. We have ours."

Giles – "I do have one question. Why would you travel to Cleveland to use their hellmouth when we already have one in Sunnydale?"

Vampire Xander couldn't help but laugh – "Oh. That's because Spike blew Sunnydale up."

Buffy – "He WHAT!"

Vamp Xander – "I made that sound worse than it was. There wasn't anyone in Sunnydale at the time. I think he did it just to show off. Problem was that he wrecked the hellmouth when he did it. Bloody typical Spike behaviour if you ask me."

Human Xander – "But wouldn't destroying a hellmouth be a good thing?"

Vamp Xander – "In some ways, sure. But it's like cops. They're always in your face when you don't want them but there's never one around when you actually need one."

Giles, holding out some papers for the vampire – "Xander, would you look here? Do any of these characters sound familiar?"

Vamp Xander took the papers and read over them quickly.

Vamp Xander – "Ahh yes. They do actually. The pretender to the throne. I know her. A right bitch as it happens. Don't worry though. I'll deal with her before personally before she does anything too stupid. Umm.. Oh this chickee here, the Tempest. That's Willow for sure."

Giles blinked and stared at Willow then shook his head in the negative.

Giles – "No, it most definitely is not."

Vamp Xander hemmed and read the paper out loud– "Okay, lets see here. Bla-bla-bla, strongest witch in the western hemisphere, has serious problems with the dark arts, rhubarb-rhubarb, goes crazy after she loses a loved one, skins a man alive, tried to kill the world once. Yup, that's Willow in a nutshell."

Willow – "What? But.. I wouldn't try to kill the world. How can you even kill the world?"

Vamp Xander – "You don't want to know. The important thing is I stopped you from doing it, so yay for me. Saved the world again. Hardly even broke a sweat doing it too."

Buffy, to Willow – "He's joking, I'm sure."

Giles, to vamp Xander – "We could test Willow's magical aptitude and perhaps, if she truly is the tempest, we could arrange some form of training for her to guard her against the dark arts."

Vamp Xander – "And I was just about to suggest that. Oh and this key character, you don't have to worry about them. They're harmless."

Giles – "Harmless? But it says that they have powers that even the gods are not meant to wield."

Vamp Xander – "Actually, I think that's just a hint. Beware of gods wanting keys. Oh, and this line here about Buffy mating with immortality, blessed in a city of sanctity. Why was that even put that in?"

Giles – "You understand the meaning behind that?"

Vamp Xander – "Yeah, sort of. It's really not important."

Giles – "Why not?"

Vamp Xander – "Let's just say its way too literal and move on… Umm. Nope. Nothing else looks familiar. I guess the timeline really has changed a lot more than I thought it would."

Giles – "Would you please look again? Any hints you could give would be invaluable."

Vamp Xander shoves the papers back and shook his head.

Vamp Xander – "No. Maybe later. I came to save the world, remember? I think it's time we got started."

Giles – "About that, what are you saving the world from?"

Vamp Xander – "The face eaters. Like I said."

Buffy – "So they eat people's faces. That doesn't sound so bad."

Vamp Xander, sighing – "I don't think you get it. After they eat your face, you turn into one of them."

Buffy – "So they're like vampires?"

Vamp Xander – "In a way. But they're so much worse. Vampires can only turn humans. Face-eaters can turn anything they want. Humans, animals, demons, hell even vampires. And they're stronger than whatever they turn, they're heavily armoured and some of them can sort of, uh, fade in and out."

Willow – "Fade in and out?"

Vamp Xander – "They can slip in between cracks in reality. Like they hide in the corners of a room and sort of wrap space around them like a blanket and disappear. While they're in the 'gone' they can travel between spaces too. Which means if you find a nest and try to burn it down, you'll quite often miss the strongest of them. Out of every type of demon I've fought over the years, hands down, they're the worse. Even singularly they can be hard to kill but they love to attack in swarms."

Buffy – "So they're tough, huh? What about weaknesses?"

Vamp Xander – "They don't have a lot. Their skins will deflect almost every type of edged weapon you can hit them with. Some people used pick axes and that can work okay. Crushing weapons like maces and hammers have been known to work as well. Forget guns. Bullets mean nothing to them and they'll shrug off anything less than an RPG to the gob. Magic worked sometimes. We tried a few different energy weapons on them and found that the blasters worked best."

Human Xander – "Blasters? You mean in the future we'll be fighting demons and vampires with energy weapons? That is so cool."

Vamp Xander – "I was thinking the same thing until I sterilized myself with a blaster. Well, not me. More like you actually."

Giles – "This blaster, that's what you used on the soldiers in Cleveland?"

Vamp Xander – "It fires some sort of ion alignment beam which it uses to shoot a few thousand volts through the air… Hold on. How did you know about that?"

Giles – "Those soldiers were mercenaries for Watchers council. You might have noticed Kendra with them."

Vamp Xander – "No but that would explain where that tomahawk came from. So Kendra is still alive? Hey, this could work out to our advantage. If we can keep Kendra from dying then we can stop the next Slayer from being called. Oh, this is great."

Buffy – "Why? I mean sure we'll stop Kendra from dying but what's wrong with the next Slayer?"

Vamp Xander – "She's a nut job. A lot of fun but real loony bin material. If we stop Kendra from dying for a few years then some other Slayer will probably be called instead. That's how it works, isn't it?"

Giles – "Yes, I believe so."

Oz – "I like that plan. It involves someone not dying."

Vamp Xander – "Of course you do. You always like my plans. It's what I liked about you."

Buffy – "Back to these face-eaters, they don't have any weaknesses? None at all?"

Vamp Xander – "No, sorry. None at all. What works on one face-eater might not work on another. Also, they can survive almost anything. The only sure way of killing them that we know is to pour petrol down their throats when they're unconscious and light them up. Just torching their outsides doesn't work sometimes."

Human Xander – "You've got to be fricking kidding me."

Vamp Xander – "I kid you not. And you don't even want to know what happened when we started running out of petrol."

Buffy – "But where did they come from? I think we would've heard of them before."

Vamp Xander – "Actually, they're new. You probably won't even hear about them for a few more years. Lily reckoned that they were made by another Elder specifically to destroy humanity. She actually thought it was kinda sad."

Cordelia – "Well yeah, destroying humanity. That's pretty sad."

Vamp Xander – "No, not that. The fact that an elder would take the time and effort to design the face-eaters, just to kill humanity. She um, was kind of an egotist. In her eyes, humanity was somewhere between plankton and the stuff you scrap off your shoe. I think she liked ferns better than people."

Buffy – "Okay but um.. What do they act like?"

Vamp Xander – "Face-eaters? They're organized. They attack like they're performing coordinated swimming. At first, they hid in the shadows, letting their numbers swell. A bit like the bringers actually. And then they attacked. In their first wave, they targeted TV and radio stations, the internet, phone systems, satellite communications, power and the governments. Chaos reigned within hours. The demons rose up and tried to take back the world for themselves. While this happened, the face-eaters just pick and chose targets of opportunity. After the fighting eased down, they attacked again with probably twice as many numbers. We made an uneasy alliance with the demon community. It didn't go very well. In case you were wondering, that's when I got turned."

Vamp Xander's jaw clenched a few times as he remembered something particularly stressful.

Vamp Xander – "After that, we were losing and there was nothing we could do about it. There were too many of them and they were too strong. They're smart too. They used our own technology against us and poisoned the air which killed crops and killed millions. Even some of the demons fell sick. There was no way we were going to win. That's when Lily thought up the idea of sending someone back to stop all that happening."

Human Xander – "Lily? Your girlfriend the Elder god? The one who thought humanity was something in between plankton and the stuff you scrap off your shoe?"

Vamp Xander – "Oh, she wasn't doing it for humanity. She was doing it save her own tuckus."

Giles – "Hold on now. You say that your girlfriend was an elder god?"

Vamp Xander – "I don't know why people find that so strange."

Buffy – "I'm sure she's very nice."

Vamp Xander, smirking – "No, she really isn't."

Giles – "I think we should call the watchers council and have this Xander checked out. If he truly does have a geas as he says he does, then it's possible we could trust in what he's telling us."

Vamp Xander got up and walked towards the front door – "Fine. You do that, Giles. I'm going out to get drunk."

Giles, blinking – "Excuse me?"

Human Xander – "Yeah, what about saving the world?"

Vamp Xander – "I'll do that tomorrow. I'm tired from all this talking."

Vamp Xander just walked away and Giles turned to Buffy, giving a wordless command.

Buffy – "I'm on it."

O-O-O-O

Buffy followed Xander to Willy's bar. She watched from a crack through the door as Xander walked in like any other patron and sat down on a chair.

Xander to Willy – "Vodka. Or is that too high brow for you?"

Willy just smirked – "Hey, aren't you one of the Slayer's buddies? I've got a picture under the bar. Though, the patch is new."

Xander – "You want one of your own or are you going to serve me?"

A few demons started approaching Xander at the bar, one of them cracking their knuckles as he did.

Then Buffy walked in and the approaching demons paused, trying not to act like kids caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Slowly, as if in the presence of a rabid dog, they backed away, back to their tables.

Buffy, jovially – "Hey Willy. What's up?"

Willy, a little choked – "H-hel-hello there, miss Buffy."

Xander to Buffy – "This schmuck won't serve me. Can you believe that?"

Buffy, pouting as she plopped down on a barstool next to Xander – "He won't? Willy, I'm disappointed. You're a no man when you really should be a yes man."

Xander – "Couldn't have said it better myself."

Willy – "N-no, I mean yes! Just to smooth this business over, how about a drink on the house? Vodka, I believed you ask for. Here, Slayer, have one too."

Willy put two tumblers down and poured vodka into each of them.

The two scoobies took their glasses, tapped them together and knocked them back.

Then Buffy sprayed it back up, over the demon next to her and fell off her bar stool, hacking and coughing.

Xander, with tears in his eyes – "God, that wasn't vodka. What was that!"

Willy – "Oh no, it's vodka alright. Fortified."

Xander, stumbled back off his barstool as the world started to move in strange and unusual ways.

Xander, holding his throat – "Fortified! With what? Drain cleaner?"

The other demons in the room were taking note of the Slayer's incapacitated state and some of them stood up to take advantage of it.

Xander – "Buffy. I think you had better get up."

Buffy, still hacking – "Sure, just gimme a minute."

Willy, to the other demons – "Hey guys. There's no fighting in here. If you want to fight you have to take it outside. Or take it downstairs to the fight club where we can all bet on it."

O-O-O-O

Outside the bar, it was a tranquil night. The moon shone down brightly, bathing the world in a calm blue shade.

Then the two front windows of Willy's bar shattered outwards as a vampire was thrown through each of them.

Xander and Buffy rolled along the ground and groaned as they pulled themselves back up.

The front door opened up and demons took their time to saunter out, as if they had all the time in the world.

Xander – "Ahh, screw it. Let's just kill them all."

Buffy, grinning evilly – "Did I ever tell you that I liked your plans?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next Chapter.


	19. 6c Valley of the blind

O-O-O-O

Several black vans skidded to a halt and armed soldiers jumped out. Kendra was in front, leading them into battle.

Limbs, organs and whole bodies were scattered along the street, each in various forms of death or incapacitation.

One of the soldiers struggled to keep his stomach down – "My god. What happened here?"

No one answered him as they stormed into a building which had its front section demolished by some monstrous force.

There was some movement inside. All eyes and guns turned towards it.

Xander, laughing out loud – "Hey you guys. Come on in and pull up a stool. We just liberated this bar from the forces of –hiccup- evil. Might want to stay off the fortified liquor though. That will put hair in places you don't want it."

The strike forces weren't in Cleveland or Los Angeles at all but in Sunnydale to pick up a certain time-travelling violence fiend who had just trashed Willy's bar with Buffy's help.

Behind Xander, Buffy was lying down on the bar with her lips locked on one of the bar taps. With one hand, she was pulling the handle down and with the other she was stroking the bar appliance, moaning in appreciation as she did.

Xander, laughing a little at the soldiers – "I guess I'm not the only one getting turned on by that."

Kendra, in disgust – "Buffy! Stop that!"

Buffy stopped the tap and with a little embarrassment she sat back up on top of the bar and wiped a little blood away from her mouth.

Kendra, appalled at Buffy – "You've been feeding?"

Buffy – "N-NO! Of course not. It's, uh, they've got blood on tap here."

Kendra looked down at the tap Buffy had been feeding from, closed her eyes and shook her head a little. There were so many things she didn't want to know about vampires and that was one of them.

Right then, an unconscious demon fell down from the rafters, almost hitting one of the soldiers.

They looked up and found a few more thrown up there. Someone had obviously been playing some sort of sport.

Kendra – "Buffy. You should go home. It's a school day tomorrow."

Xander laughed out loud, giving Buffy a weird look – "You go to school!"

Buffy, a little tipsy – "Hey, it's not that funny."

Xander – "Yeah it is. It was funny the first time around too."

Kendra picked up Xander by an elbow – "We have questions to ask you."

Xander – "Hey. I'm not finished here. We haven't even wrecked his jukebox yet."

Kendra, in a commanding tone – "Yes, you're finished. You're coming with us."

Buffy tried to follow but stumbled when she slipped off the bar and fell on her face.

Kendra, to a passing soldier – "Could you take HER home please? We don't need a drunk Slayer on the streets."

Buffy, with a heavy tongue – "Hey, I'm not drunk. I'm concussed. There's a big difference. What are you doing with muh Xandie?"

Kendra – "We just want to talk to him. Now go home, Buffy."

A soldier came up to Buffy and she pushed him aside in a huff.

Buffy – "I can walk home by myself."

Like a bad joke, the Slayer walked into a bar.

Buffy – "Ouch."

O-O-O-O

A few hours later and Buffy screamed when sunlight landed on her.

Buffy - "Ahh, it burns!"

She rolled off the bed, pulling the blankets with her and tried patting herself out.

The door to her room quickly opened and a concerned Joyce looked in.

Joyce – "Buffy? What's wrong?"

Buffy, holding a hand over her face - "Um, nothing mom. I just had a weird dream. Sorry for waking you."

Joyce – "Don't worry. You didn't wake me. You just, um, get dressed for school. Okay?"

Buffy – "Okay. Thanks."

Joyce closed the door and Buffy checked around her neck for the necklace. It was still around her neck so what was happening?

Buffy opened her eyes and found the world to be full of blindingly painful sunlight.

She groggily got up and closed the blinds but that didn't dim it enough for her liking.

Buffy realized why people drank at Willy's. His establishment was probably the only one in town that sold anything strong enough to kill the hangovers you get when you drink there.

How she was ever going to get through school without killing someone, she didn't know.

O-O-O-O

Xander the vampire was shirtless and heavily chained down into a large metal frame that was obviously made for holding vampires. The room he was in was covered in foam pyramids to help break up sound. It was a psychological tactic that Xander understood well.

By cutting out the echoes in the room, it made the air sound thinner as if the occupants were standing on top of a high mountain or in a hot air balloon. But since they were vastly closer to sea level, the pressure in the room was vastly thicker than the lack of echoes would indicate. The differing sensory signals kept the instinctual part of people's brains guessing and off-balance.

In front of him stood a tall but stocky mercenary with his sleeves rolled up.

WHAM! he hit Xander in the gut.

Xander grunted a little but didn't seem too impressed by the hit. He didn't even have his vampire face on. By the looks of things, he was just bored.

WHAM! He hit Xander in the gut again and Xander kept the bored look on his face.

Xander – "You're getting tired."

Merc, tired – "So are you."

Xander, bored – "If you say so."

Then the doors to the sound proof room opened and Kendra walked in.

Kendra – "I'll take over for now."

The merc grunted and left them alone, closing the doors as he left.

Xander, looking Kendra up and down – "Well, if I'm going to beaten I might as well do it in style."

Kendra didn't talk back. She just studied Xander for a moment.

Xander tilted his head and studied her back. The look in her eyes was pity but the smell coming off her was something different.

Kendra put a hand on the side of Xander's mouth where his lip had been split and Xander really began to wonder what was going through her head.

Kendra – "You should just them what they want to know. It will be easier on you that way."

Xander – "I can't."

Kendra moved even closer, becoming almost intimately close and whispered – "You'll just get hurt. Why don't you just tell them and it will stop."

Xander – "I wish I could tell you but I can't. I just can't."

Kendra gently glided a tender hand across Xander's scalp and her other hand reached up and rested against his bruised side.

Xander, unable to stop himself from smiling – "This is a side of you I've never seen before. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone about AACK!"

Xander let out a silent scream without any air behind it as Kendra slid a large hook under his rib cage.

Kendra – "You really think I'd kiss you? A vampire? You're even stupider than I thought you would be. Now TELL ME! Who is the key?"

Xander glared at her with his game face on.

Xander, after taking in a painful breath – "I won't tell you anything."

Kendra – "Why not? What do you care? You're a vampire. You don't care about anyone. Just tell me."

Xander – "You'd never understand."

Kendra, pulling on the hook – "Try me. I'm not going anywhere."

Xander – "You'd never understand because you don't love anyone. You've never loved anyone, have you?"

This actually made Kendra pause. Then she went back to business and scraped the hook along the inside of Xander's ribcage.

Kendra – "Dat means nothing. You will tell us who the key is."

The funny thing was, even if Xander wanted to tell Kendra, he couldn't because Willow's spell would stop him.

Maybe the funnier thing was he didn't want to tell her anything.

It was so funny, Xander started to laugh despite the pain and the meat hook in his side.

O-O-O-O

By lunch time, Buffy's hell inspired hang over had eased off a little but it was still smouldering on the edges of her brain.

As she entered the library, Giles spotted her and noticed that she was under the weather.

Giles – "Hello, Buffy. You don't look altogether well. Did Joyce cook vegetarian again?"

Buffy – "No. If only. I did the stupidest thing and got drunk with Xander last night."

Giles – "Yes, I heard. And I was wondering, do you know of any particular reason why a branch of the watchers council in Munich would be interested in your hair and eye colour?"

Buffy frowned in the deepest confusion.

Buffy – "Munich, France?"

Giles – "No. Munich, Germany. I don't believe there is a Munich in France."

Buffy – "Oh, Munich, Germany? Then no, I've got no clue. But if it had been Munich, France then that would've been completely different."

Giles – "Because they phoned me specifically and.. never mind. I'm sure it's nothing."

Buffy, looking around – "Hey so have you heard from Xander?"

Giles – "No. Why?"

Buffy, shrugging innocently – "I don't know."

Giles, in a fatherly fashion – "I know this is none of my business but surely you're not interested in him."

Buffy – "May-be."

Giles – "That thing isn't our Xander. He doesn't even try to act like ours. He's obscene and uncouth."

Buffy – "I know that. But he's fun. And.. and I get lonely. I don't think there'll be a lot of chances for boyfriends out there for me. And this particular vampire might just be one of them."

Giles – "I suppose you're right. But I won't feel good about this at all. He's a bad influence on you, taking you out to demon bars to fight and steal drinks."

Buffy – "Hey, we're not an item yet. I don't even know if it could work between us. He's a little..."

Giles – "Insane?"

Buffy – "You picked up on that too?"

Giles – "I've gotten the impression that he wasn't given a soul because no one could do it. I think they didn't give him a soul because they didn't want the real Xander to suffer. Whatever happens in the future, even this vampire was emotionally scarred from it."

Buffy – "Or maybe he just turned crazy before he was turned. Kinda like Drusilla. Though, he's definitely not in her league on the craziedometer."

Giles – "I'm not so sure about that."

Buffy – "Oh, you've never actually had a conversation with her. She's completely batso."

Giles – "And you have had a conversation with her?"

Buffy – "Umm. Yeah. Sort of. Back when I first got turned. She was um.. kind of nice to me."

Giles considered what Buffy had said then tried his best to forget the image that sprung to mind.

Buffy – "So you haven't heard anything about Xander?"

Giles – "No. I haven't. Sorry."

Buffy – "Do you think the council still have him?"

Giles – "I would expect so. With his future knowledge, he's still too valuable to let loose in the streets. He could get himself killed and what good would he be able to do then?"

Buffy, chuckling – "Giles. He won't get himself killed. You should have seen him last night. He was amazing. Almost as good as a Slayer."

Giles – "Really? But he's just a vampire. He can't have been turned for more than ten years."

Buffy – "Yes but he was Xander for years before that. Think about it. Xander, Willow and even Cordelia I guess. You're all human but you help me with vampires and demons and other things. You mightn't be the toughest guys around but you're no slouches either. When the worlds about to end, I know who I want at my back. My friends, that's who! That includes you too, Giles."

Giles took this with a tinge of pride – "Thank you. You're too kind."

Buffy, smiling – "No. I'm not. It's just credit where credit is due. I don't think I say it enough but I couldn't do this without you guys."

Giles – "Thank you. And I guess that if you truly want to see Xander's double then you have my blessing."

Buffy, giggling a little and hugging Giles – "Why thank you, Dad."

Giles couldn't help but smile at the affectionate vampire and Buffy had to remind herself to keep her hands in respectable places. If she didn't, it would just ruin the moment.

O-O-O-O

After School, Buffy wandered over to the warehouse where the council did tests on her every month. She walked up to the side door and knocked on it a few times.

After a few moments, the door opened and two guards looked out.

Guard, while chewing bubble gum – "What do you want?"

Buffy – "I thought maybe you had Xander in here."

Guard – "What's it to you?"

Buffy – "So you do have him in there? Cool. Cos I just wanted to talk to him. You know, chat."

Guard – "He's busy. Go home."

The guard moved to close the door and Buffy blocked the door with a hand.

Buffy – "Hey, I just want to talk to him and see if he's okay."

Guard – "He's fine, now just walk away."

Buffy thought about this. What was she going to do? Assault her way in? That wouldn't go down very well. So she just walked away in a huff and the two guards watched her go.

Then she stopped and closed her eyes. She focused on listening and the world around her thrummed into stereophonic sound. She picked up the birds flying over head in formation and the sounds of traffic across the town. She fine tuned her senses even more and picked up worms crawling through the earth and the distracting juicy sound of blood being pumped through the guard's behind her.

She turned around and faced the warehouse, listening to the sounds inside. There was the buzzing electric sound of power and lighting. Someone was eating their lunch inside and by the crinkly tinsel wrapper Buffy guessed it was a burger from double meat palace. God, how did people eat those things?

But there was something wrong. She couldn't pick up anything else.

She tried to make sense of this and found something like a black hole that absorbed almost all the sound that hit it. She focused on the area and heard something. It was muffled but it was there.

Buffy's eyes flashed open and she looked up the guards with a growl.

Guard - "Go home, little girl. And that's not a request."

He backed this up with him and his buddy pointing their submachine guns at her.

Buffy – "What are you doing to Xander in there?"

Guard – "It doesn't concern you. It's council business. So why don't you just go home and play with your Barbie's? Because you really don't want to mess with us."

Buffy looked down at the gun the guard was carrying and sighed.

Buffy – "Fine. But I'm going to tell on you."

Guard – "You do that."

O-O-O-O

Inside Xander's foam room of solitude, Kendra continued the torture. Kendra had cut him and bruised him in various places but none of them were terribly fatal for a vampire. Even a human could live through most of them. But the injuries were of the extremely painful variety.

Kendra, idly poking a scalpel into the ball joint in Xander's shoulder – "Just give in. I tink I can do dis for days."

Xander, gritting his teeth in pain – "Now you're just trying to make me hard."

Kendra frowned, not familiar with that term.

Xander, in obvious pain – "Say, have you ever thought of wearing your hair down? It might be a good look for you. Although you do-ugh-have very nice cheek bones."

Kendra – "Tank you. You are very sweet but this isn't what I want to hear."

Xander, not even able to smirk at full strength – "You want me to talk dirty? I can talk dirty."

Kendra, giving him a steely glare – "You know what I want to hear. Tell me about the key."

Then the door to the room opened and Buffy was standing in it with a confused look on her face.

Buffy – "Kendra? What.. What are you doing to him?"

Kendra, angrily – "Buffy? How did you get in here?"

Buffy, sarcastically – "By beating up the guards of course. You didn't hear that? Oh, I guess you couldn't because you're inside a sound proof room."

Xander – "Oh hey. Buffy's come to rescue me. This brings back memories."

Kendra took the first move and flying kicked Buffy, knocking her straight out of the doorway and into the main warehouse room. While Buffy was still skidding along the ground, Kendra came running out and jumped.

Buffy's rolled out of the way just in time as Kendra came down with a fist that missed her head and fractured the concrete floor.

Buffy kept rolling and Kendra came out of the crouch with a kick that launched rolling Buffy up and into the corrugated metal wall of the warehouse. As Buffy fell down in a spin, she somehow landed on her feet and righted herself.

Buffy – "Okay. You've gotten better since the last time I fought you but you really think you can take me on? I've gotten better too."

Kendra, pulling a thin rectangular dark metal plate out of her back pocket – "But I don't even have to fight you. Chan zey la gool. Hant mon ta zeem."

After speaking the words of power, Kendra held out the dark metal plate like a cross and the enigmatic symbols indented into it started glowing with a soft golden hue.

Buffy looked at her oddly and then gasped as her knees lost all their strength.

Buffy, loosing the ability to speak – "whup?"

Then Buffy fell flat on her face. She limply moved her arms to push herself back up but didn't have the strength.

Buffy, unintelligibly – "Wa ish sish?"

Kendra – "I'm sorry for this, Buffy. I wish there was another way."

Oz, sounding helpful – "I can think of one."

Kendra spun around and was confronted by Xander, Willow and Oz. Xander and Oz had baseball bats while Willow had a tazor.

Oz swung out with the bat and struck the metal plate right out of Kendra's hand.

Kendra, at a loss of understanding – "What do you tink you're doing? Why are you helping her?"

Xander, looking to Oz – "Uh, should we?"

Oz – "Okay. But I want to say I feel bad about this."

Xander – "Me too."

Then both of them attacked Kendra with the bats. They weren't hitting her seriously hard, just enough to be painful and taking enough caution to stay out of her reach.

Kendra, blocking the bats with annoyance – "Hey! Stop it – Ow!"

Kendra finally grabbed both of the bats and pushed them back into their owners, knocking Oz and Xander off their feet.

Xander, holding his side– "Ow. That shouldn't have hurt that much."

Oz didn't say anything but it looked like he agreed.

Kendra – "This is stupid. What did you hope to achieve by dis?"

Buffy – "No, Kendra. This is stupid."

When Kendra turned towards Buffy, Buffy snapped the magical license plate like a wheatie brick. A few magical sparkles flickered out from the two broken pieces but after that, it went completely dead.

Kendra – "Buffy. What I'm doing, I'm doing for the world. Why can't you see dat?"

Buffy – "You really should be talking to the guy you were just torturing."

Then from behind, a shirtless vampire latched his fangs into Kendra's shoulder.

Kendra screamed out and vamp Xander reached around and smothered her mouth. Kendra struggled and he shook her from side to side, not letting her legs get a good standing. She elbowed him in the gut but that just made him bite down more. He was draining her lifeforce and she was helpless to stop. Her eyes screamed out to Buffy, who just stood there calmly.

Then Xander tossed Kendra aside, not taking the final step in killing her. She hit the ground and cried out weakly.

Buffy, to Xander the vampire – "Feel better?"

Xander – "Yeah. It was good for me. I guess it's true what they say. Revenge is a dish best served with a knife and fork."

Buffy turned back to Kendra and stood down on the Slayer's neck.

Buffy – "Kendra. I never want to see you in Sunnydale again. You hear me? I said, do you HEAR ME!"

Kendra nodded pitifully and Buffy let off. Then all the Scoobys left, leaving Kendra alone to lick her wounds. Not in the literal sense, obviously.

When they got outside, vampire Xander smashed a door window for one of the councils black vans.

Vampire Xander – "It's funny. This is going to be the second one I've stolen this week."

He unlocked the door, opened it, and brushed some glass off the front seat.

Buffy – "Uh, Xander. What do you think you're doing?"

Vamp Xander – "Leaving town."

Buffy – "But why?"

Human Xander – "Buffy. Let him go."

Vamp Xander – "Monkey boy's right. The council will come to get me again. Next time, they might even think of removing Willow's spell. If that happens then I'll probably blurt my heart out. And I might not too but do you really want to find out?"

Buffy, not liking this – "I guess not."

Vamp Xander – "Relax. I'll be fine. I'll just find some of the other Scoobies and we'll all camp out in a vowel state somewhere. I hear Ontario is nice this time of year."

Human Xander – "More Scoobies? You mean we expand?"

Vamp Xander, chuckling – "More than you'd ever believe. Oh and hey, chew toy, you wanted to know who turned us?"

Human Xander – "Yeah."

Vamp Xander – "Umm, it's like this. I got turned by the shish-kebab method."

Human Xander – "Shish-kebab?"

Vamp Xander – "It was a freak accident. See, I was standing next to a vampire and we both got skewered at the same time and we got kinda stuck that way with them on top. I bled out, they bled on me and somehow I got turned."

Cordelia – "Eww."

Vamp Xander – "I don't normally tell people because, let's face it, it's sad. But you wanted to know so there it is."

Human Xander – "So who was the vampire?"

Vamp Xander, shrugging – "I don't even know. Just some scared vampire girl. Things got a bit crazy in the future. Half of the people were fighting alongside we didn't even know."

Cordelia, smirking – "And that's why you're back here, isn't it? To stop craziness."

Vamp Xander, turning on the ignition to the van somehow – "Exactly. To pave a new, uh, a new path into the future. Hey, it might even get me laid. See you guys."

Then the vampire rudely drove off, leaving Buffy waving goodbye.

Buffy, as the van turned the corner – "Bye Xander."

Human Xander, with a silly smile – "But it's not goodbye. I'm right here."

Buffy, smiling weakly – "Yeah. You're right."

O-O-O-O

The next day, things were tense in the library between the younger generation and Giles. Xander, Willow, Cordelia and Oz were backing up Buffy in her defence.

Giles – "I wish you would have come to me before trying something so impulsive and foolhardy."

Buffy, to Giles – "I didn't ask for your help because I didn't want you to get in trouble with the council."

Giles – "Buffy, what would you have done if one of the guards shot one of your friends? They're not vampires. Bullets kill them."

Buffy, a little hesitant – "I-I don't know. But Giles, they were torturing him."

Giles – "And he was withholding information vital to the survival of the entire human race. He said as much by himself."

Buffy, gaping at Giles in disbelief – "You knew about this? You knew what they were going to do to him and you didn't stop them! Omigod, Giles. You probably knew about that magic card trick Kendra used on me too."

Giles – "That magic tablet was given to her by the council so that she could incapacitate Angelus, since you seem unable to. And it should be noted that she risked her very life by using it on you. It was a very unpredictable artefact that can be very dangerous to the user."

Buffy – "I can't believe this. You're plotting behind my back. What else haven't you been telling me?"

Willow – "Buffy. You shouldn't be so hard on him. He's just trying to do the right thing."

Buffy, staring at Willow – "The right thing? Were you in on this too?"

Willow – "N-no! I didn't-I wasn't in on anything."

Xander – "Buff, you were acting kind of Angel-whipped for a while there. We weren't sure if we could trust you."

Buffy – "Guys, you know I'd never want to hurt any of you, right?"

Willow – "We know that. But sometimes you're not yourself."

Giles – "And that's exactly why the council isn't taking chances with you. Buffy, you're a unique case. To be entirely honest, we don't know what to expect and that scares us."

Buffy – "Yeah but hello! Prophecy about me being a major good guy. Has everyone forgotten about that?"

Giles – "Prophecies, by their very nature, are vague and open to interpretation. It has been pointed out on several previous occasions that it is not known how you usher in a new golden age. For all the council knows, it could be prompted by your death."

Buffy – "Do you believe that?"

Giles – "What I believe doesn't matter."

Buffy – "But do you believe that?"

Giles hesitated.

Giles – "No. No, I don't."

Buffy – "Good. And if you ever keep anything like this from me again, you're fired."

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "You heard me. Fired."

Cordelia, curiously – "You can't do that, can you?"

Buffy – "Why not?"

Giles, sighing – "Buffy. I believe you're just a little heated right now. I think I will leave you alone to your thoughts in the hope that you'll cool down."

Buffy, as Giles left the library – "Fine. You do that."

Willow – "I don't believe this. Giles left the library. We're supposed to leave the library, not him. He's the librarian. Buffy, you can't fire him. He's.. he's Giles."

Oz, backing Willow up – "He sure is Giles."

Buffy – "Yeah. I know. I won't fire him. But how do you think I feel? If he's been keeping that from me, what else do you think he's got?"

Xander – "I don't know but I don't think this it will be all that bad. He's not out to hurt you."

Buffy, sighing – "You're right. I hate to admit it but you're right."

Xander – "But you know who I really feel bad for right now? Kendra."

Cordelia – "Why? She was torturing the other you."

Xander – "Well, yeah. That's a tick in the bad box for her. But she just got bitten in the neck and exiled from Sunnydale. The only reason it happened to her was because she was following orders."

Buffy – "You're siding with Kendra on this?"

Xander – "No. Well, maybe a little. That vampire wasn't very helpful."

Cordelia – "Except for possibly saving my life by telling me not to go to LA. And he warned us about those face-eating things. That's got to be worth something."

Buffy, as she left the library – "Hey um, you guys hang. I've got something I have to do."

The others watched as Buffy left.

Xander, looking around – "You're right, Willow. This place is just creepy during the day without Giles in it."

Willow, nodding – "It goes against everything natural in the world."

O-O-O-O

Buffy followed Giles and found him in the computer room.

Buffy, before realizing she was in Jenny's old classroom – "Hey, Giles, I um.."

Giles slowly turned and faced her – "Yes, Buffy?"

Buffy – "I wanted to say sorry. Willow's right. You're only doing your job. If I was in the same situation, I might do the same thing. So I shouldn't have jumped on you for that. I didn't realize where we were. I'll uh, just leave you alone now."

Giles, pleasantly – "Thank you. That would be nice."

Buffy turned away and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.

Once she left, he knelt low and put his head against the floor, scanning the floor. Then he got back up, approached Jenny's old desk and reached under it with his hand. After a moment of struggling, he stood back up with a bright yellow disk in his hand.

Then he brought out a letter from his pocket, unfolded it and read it.

"Dear Giles.

It's Xander. The other one. There's so much that I could say but I wanted to keep it simple. It's obvious that the timeline is vastly different now and obviously things won't turn out the way they did before. But there are a few things that you need to know.

First. The council can't be trusted. In the future, the council will die and you will have to remake it yourself.

Second. In my timeline, Jenny actually finished recreating Angel's curse but never got a chance to cast it. You might want to check in her class for a disk. I remember it being found on the floor, somewhere hard to notice. Finding it might help.

Third. Don't expect to hear from me again.

Goodbye, father figure."

Giles put down the letter and held up the disk. Things were about to change in his world and it would start with this.

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	20. 7a Cavity search

O-O-O-O

It was a quiet day in Sunnydale's only highschool even as the bells rung out and the children were released back into the public.

While teenagers went their various ways, Larry was still inside and clearing out his locker. It was something he should have done a lot earlier.

Then Buffy bounced against the locker next to his and surprised him.

Larry, panting – "Buffy. You almost gave me a heart attack."

Buffy, smiling – "I'm just checking up on you. How have you been?"

Larry, hesitant – "Umm, good. Good."

Buffy – "All settled in? No problems?"

Larry, shaking his head – "No. It's been great. It's more than I deserve."

In the background there was a struggle and Larry looked over the top of Buffy's head to see what it was.

Larry, confused – "Why do you think the FBI is hauling the coach away?"

Buffy, shrugging – "Probably has something to do with how he's been drugging the swim team."

Larry, frowning – "Really? That's the first I've heard of it. Actually, this is strange. In the past week there's been a lot of drug related arrests. Like on Tuesday Pete got arrested for some performance enhancing too."

Buffy, with a knowing smile – "You don't say?"

Larry, tilting his head – "You had something to do with this?"

Buffy – "Only how I told the FBI were to look and what to look for."

Larry – "But how did you know?"

Buffy tapped her nose.

Larry, chuckling – "So it's not just there for looking cute?"

Buffy, twirling a string of hair with a finger – "You think it's cute?"

Larry – "As a button."

Buffy, complimented – "Thanks. I, um, better get back to my girls."

She looked over her shoulder for a second to Willow and Cordelia then turned back to Larry –"I think they're getting impatient."

Larry – "Uh, okay. I'll see you later."

Buffy, letting her eyes drift up and down over Larry – "You can count on it."

Larry paused for a second then turned back to the task at hand as Buffy walked away.

Willow – "Buffy. Were you just flirting with Larry?"

Buffy – "Umm. No. Was I?"

Cordelia – "He's a lesbian in a man's body. Doesn't that seem wrong to you?"

Buffy, considering this – "Not really. Should it? I mean, really. Should it?"

Xander, coming up behind the girls – "Actually, that sounds about right to me. I've been a lesbian for years. Can't stand guys. Never have. Never will."

Willow gave him an unimpressed look and Xander said "Sorry. I was listening in. I always wonder what you girls talk about."

Buffy – "Actually, we were talking about you."

Xander, not able to hide his smile – "Really?"

Cordelia – "About your vampire, Frodo brain."

Xander – "Oh. Him. You get turned into a vampire once and people just don't let you forget it."

Buffy, snorting – "Aint that the truth."

Willow – "Giles is taking the information your vampire gave us pretty seriously. He um.. had me tested."

Xander, confused – "Tested?"

Willow – "Magically."

Buffy – "Yeah. The council did some tests on Willow at the same place I go every month. Turns out she could be the next big thing in magic."

Xander, blinking – "Really? You mean other-me wasn't joking?"

Willow, uncomfortably – "Umm, they say they're going to give me a tutor. To stop me from straying into the dark arts."

Xander – "But that's good. Isn't it?"

Willow – "Yeah. But I just don't feel very dark-artsy. Do I look it?"

Buffy, chuckling – "Willow. You're one of the sweetest people I know."

Willow – "But -"

Xander – "But nothing. Buffy's right. You're a sweet, lovable ball of Willowy goodness. Nothing's going to change that."

Buffy – "I couldn't have said it better myself. So who's up for killing stuff tonight? Giles is taking the night off."

Willow – "I'm up."

Xander – "Me too."

Cordelia – "Count me out. I've got a life tonight. In fact, I'll start it right now. See you later, losers."

Cordelia branched off in a different direction while the others kept walking.

Xander – "So has there been any news on the Angelus front?"

Willow elbowed him in the ribs and he winced.

Buffy – "It's okay, Will. And no. Angel has really gone into hiding since I tried to kill him."

Xander – "He's got no character. That's his problem."

Buffy – "You know, I think you're right. Angel just isn't as three dimensional without his soul. He's got no grit. His soul really fills him out as a person."

Xander, patting his stomach – "I know that's what I use mine for. Padding."

Willow – "I'm not looking forward to meeting Angelus any time soon. If he wants to stay away from us, I'm okay with that."

Buffy – "Yeah but if does that then how am I supposed to kill him?"

Willow – "You-you want to?"

Buffy, considering this – "Yeah. I actually do. I mean, I still love him but I really want to kill him. Huh, is that weird?"

Xander and Willow gave each other silent looks and then both shook their heads.

Xander – "Nope. That's perfectly healthy. You go with that."

Willow – "I don't really like surprises of the fanged variety so hopefully tonight we only meet normal non-hundred year old vampires."

Buffy, smiling – "I'm sure we will, Willow."

O-O-O-O

Deep down, far underneath the fertile dirt, in a series of underground caverns there were four vampires moving what looked like a large solid bronze coffin while one more vampire overlooked the operation.

One of the vampires dropped his end and the one in charge yelled at him.

"Hey! They're very old and very weak. We don't know how breakable they are so try to be at least a little gentle."

The vampire huffed, picked up his side and complained – "This thing is heavy."

Leader vampire – "Stop whining."

Whiner – "I don't see you helping. You're the strongest one here."

The Leader, growling in contempt – "Just put it on the altar."

The four vampires obeyed and gently rested the coffin down.

The leader – "Good. Now back away."

The other vampires moved back while the leader poured a large flute like bottle of thick black blood onto the coffins lid.

Then he knelt and closed his eyes before the altar.

Leader, calling out to powers from other worlds – "Opochi of the waters that run red, I call to you. Bring this warrior back to our world. Opochi of the coral that cuts and bleeds, I demand that you lift your veil of death."

The leader frowned and got up, reading over some notes that had been written for him.

A beefy vampire – "What? Is that it? The big ritual?"

Leader, looking over the notes – "Looks like."

Whiner, again – "So how come nothing happened?"

Another vampire – "Maybe he said Opochi wrong."

Leader – "I didn't say it wrong. And it's Oh-pox-hi. Not epoxy. Epoxy is a type of glue."

Beefy vampire – "I knew it. We got scammed."

Whiner – "Maybe we needed more doe blood."

Leader – "We didn't get scammed and we don't need more doe blood. That should have been more than enough."

Beefy vampire – "We so got scammed. Didn't it seem a little strange to you?"

Leader – "Did what seem strange? What are you talking about?"

Beefy vampire – "That we've got our hands on what is supposed to be a bad-ass strong enough to kill the Slayer and it didn't cost us that much. And don't forget the fact that it came with helpful instructions on how to raise them from the dead."

Whiner – "Oh man. We got scammed. I sold my comic book collection to help buy this."

Leader – "Okay, so we'll just –Oh! Did you hear that? It made a noise."

The vampires all crept closer to the metal coffin and some sounds were definitely coming out from it.

The whiner of the group knocked on the coffin and spoke at it "Hello? Is anyone home?"

A hand tore through the dense metal armor and ripped straight into the vampire's throat. When it pulled back into the coffin, it pulled out a good portion of the poor demon's throat with it.

Leader – "Oh shit!"

Then the coffin burst open as the demon inside tore through it like it was made out of tin-foil. The creature tore a chunk of metal off its cage and threw it so violently that it took one of the vampire's head clean off.

That was more than enough violence for the other vampires so they ran for it.

The leader barely got five feet before he was picked off the ground and pushed against a wall by what he had just raised. The other vampires kept running, leaving him for dead.

The leader gulped as the monster brushed aside a mass of tangled hair and cobwebs to reveal the pissed off visage of an ancient and coincidentally female vampire.

Ancient vampire – "Warrum vosse see accordu?.. Razda!"

The leader looked at her dumbfounded – "Umm. Sprechen the English?"

The vampire growled back at him – "Why you wake me, Briton?"

Leader – "Because, uh, weren't we supposed to?"

The ancient vampire squinted at him as she tried to decipher modern English.

Ancient vampire, slowly – "No. You .. weren't."

Leader – "But I was told, I was told you would kill the Slayer."

The ancient dropped the leader and growled, walking away – "I nont care about the Slayer."

Leader, confused – "You don't? But.. But I was told you would. I was told you were made to kill this specific Slayer. It's what you were made for."

The ancient vampire turned around with interest and her game face faded away to reveal a remarkably gentle face – "Huh?"

The Leader – "This Slayer, she's not just a Slayer. She's a vampire too."

The ancient frowned and thought about this – "Vam-pire?"

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Xander and Willow were walking quietly along a generic Sunnydale cemetery when Buffy spun around suddenly.

Willow, alert – "What is it?"

Buffy, pouting – "There's nothing there. I think I'm getting paranoid."

Xander, chuckling in relief – "Getting? As in only just now? Cos I started that years ago."

Willow, to Xander – "You're an early bloomer."

Buffy frowned and kept walking with the others. Then she spun around again.

Buffy – "Now I know there's something out there. Whoa. Check out marathon victim boy."

Buffy and the others ran towards someone who was running away from something the Scoobies couldn't see yet

As they came closer, they found a guy running away from a bunch of humanoid demons that were stumbling and crawling their way towards him along the ground.

Buffy, recognized the victim – "Larry?"

Larry, keeping out of reach from the ground hugging demons – "Uh, hi."

Buffy -"Larry? What are you doing out here?"

Larry, looking back at the things crawling after him – "Looking for you. Hey, what are these things? They won't stop chasing me."

Then one of the demons saw Willow and it started crawling towards her instead.

Willow, backing up – "Umm, Buffy? Do you want to get this?"

As the demon crawled past Buffy, she knelt down and stabbed in the back with a stake. It dusted and Buffy stood back up with a fresh look of confusion.

Buffy - "They're vampires?"

Larry was jogging around in large circles around the Scoobies with the two vampires following him, running on their hands and knees and only very occasionally their feet.

Buffy rolled her eyes and stood on one of them, holding it in place and then dusting it with a stake to the back. With the other, she lifted it up by the scruff of its shirt and held it up as it crawled at the air and gnashed its teeth with unseeing eyes. It didn't seem to make any effort to get out of Buffy's grip.

Larry – "That's not normal, is it?"

Xander – "No, that's a vampire."

Larry – "I know what a vampire is, Harris. I mean, that's not normal for a vampire."

Xander – "In my professional opinion, no."

Willow – "What's happened to it?"

Buffy – "That was my question too."

Then Buffy yelled into the vampires ear – "Hey! Stop it."

The vampire didn't appear to hear her.

Buffy, to the others – "Any guesses?"

Willow – "Maybe we should show it to Giles."

Xander – "Show Giles? Why?"

Willow – "Because this is.. weird."

Buffy, nodding – "Gile will like it. Hey, Xander, you brought the rope, right?"

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later and Giles was looking at a wriggling, pig-tied vampire.

Giles – "And why did you bring this to me?"

Buffy pointed to Willow – "It was her idea."

Willow – "Giles. It's acting more like an animal than a vampire. Vampires can at least walk properly."

Buffy, smiling – "And do other cool stuff too. Like dancing. Even singing. We're almost like normal folk."

Giles frowned and started looking the vampire over.

Giles – "I'm not sure what you want me to do about it. Hmm, what's this? Oh hello. It appears that someone has trepanned this vampire. How odd."

Xander – "Huh?"

Willow – "It's a medical procedure. Kind of like drilling into your head only not."

Buffy took the vampire's head in her hands and found the hole in the back of its head and looked inside it.

Willow – "Buffy. Eww."

Buffy took a closer look then stuck some fingers in the hole, having a good feel around.

Willow – "Buffy, EWWW!"

Buffy, in confusion – "Guys. You should check this out."

Xander, looking a little green – "No. That's fine."

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "There's no brains and… so that's what the inside of a skull feels like."

Giles – "What do you mean there's no brains?"

Buffy – "There aren't any. Here, take a look."

Giles – "Ah, no thank you. I'll take your word for it."

Buffy – "But doing THAT to a vampire should kill him. Why hasn't it? Vamps can't sustain this sort of damage."

Giles – "Oh, um, I'm not sure. That's a very good point. Larry, what do you know about this?"

Larry, who had previously been leaning against a far wall, jerked alert – "What? I didn't do anything."

Giles – "I never said you did. I was just asking where this vampire attacked you."

Larry – "I was waiting outside the cemetery in my car when they sprung up on me."

Buffy – "The same cemetery we just happened to be in?"

Larry – "That's right. And they just came out of nowhere and attacked my car. I got out to see what was happening and they chased me. Not very well but there you go."

Giles – "And what were you doing parked outside of the cemetery?"

Buffy – "He's been following us."

Larry, looking shifty – "Umm, no I haven't."

Buffy, chuckling – "Yes you have."

Willow, clearly concerned – "He has?"

Buffy – "Yeah. You didn't notice him? His car was parked outside every cemetery we were at. He's been watching us with binoculars."

Larry – "Uh, how did you know that? I mean, it's not what you think. I was just, uh-"

Xander – "Stalking?"

Larry – "Uh, no! Not stalking. Just watching. I just wanted to know what you guys, uh, did."

Buffy – "Why didn't you just ask?"

Larry – "I don't know. I didn't think of it."

Giles – "I know we shouldn't jump to conclusions. But Larry, I have to ask. You didn't remove these vampire's brains, did you?"

Larry – "What? No. This might sound wussy and not very manly of me but vampires scare me."

Xander, grinning – "No. It's perfectly okay for men to admit that. Do it often. Especially when I'm around. It'll make me look good."

Willow glared at him and Xander just chuckled meanly.

Buffy – "Its okay, Larry. But we're going to have a talk tomorrow. Do you want us to walk you home? I can protect you."

Larry nodded silently.

Xander, yawned – "I'll see you guys tomorrow. And Larry, I'll have a talk to you too. About how to stalk the proper way. I'll teach you my special technique. I call it stalking with the minds eye."

Willow gave him an odd look, while Buffy chuckled.

Buffy – "Goodnight Xander. Goodnight Giles."

Giles – "Excuse me. But what do you want me to do with this brainless vampire?"

Buffy, shrugging – "I don't know. Show the council. Maybe you'll get a .. Do they give out awards for weird crap?"

Giles frowned as Buffy and the other youths walked away into the street. Xander crossed the street, heading for his home while the others walked left.

They kept walking for a while until Buffy stopped and looked around for something that wasn't there.

Willow – "Umm, Buffy. Our stalkers over here. Not behind you."

Buffy, smirking – "Yeah. Sorry. My radar's been a bit funny today. Must be those steroids I accidentally took a nose full of."

O-O-O-O

Xander kept walking his way home when a girl walked appeared on the footpath in front of him.

No, not just a girl. A hot girl with shiny tar black long hair. Tall and leggy like Cordelia but bonier and dressed in a bunch of tightened leather straps that made her look like a catwalk runaway from the Xena show.

Xander, impressed at the outfit - "Whoa. Check out the living dead girl. That's a nice get up but I think it might be dusty time for you."

Xander pulled out a stake and started forwards. The girl held up a hand and Xander stopped, seemingly unable to move any closer. He looked down at his feet and for some reason they weren't moving when he told them to.

The girl didn't say anything. She just stood there and studied Xander. Then she took the stake out of his hand and tossed it aside.

Vampire, in a clunky accent – "What do they call you?"

Xander, already sweating in panic – "My friends call me Xander. But you can call me Xander. What's your name?"

Vampire – "I am the most famous, the most powerful, the most feared of all vam-pire. I am Oberon. But you can call me Oberon. Tell me, what do for Buffy?"

Xander, confused at the question – "Huh?"

Oberon – "Buffy. What are you for her?"

Xander – "Umm. I'm her friend. You know what a friend is, don't you?"

Oberon sniffed him a little – "Friend?"

Xander tried to move again but to no success – "Oh crap."

Oberon, sniffing him a little closer – "She feed off you?"

Xander, gulping – "I can't run but I can still scream like a girl. Don't make me do it."

Oberon, smiling – "You not scream. I think you like this."

Xander, confused – "No. I not like this. What have you done to me?"

Oberon, taking Xander's hand – "Just relax. Sush-sush. Come. Walk with me."

Xander walked forwards despite himself. He looked down and found that he could choose where his feet landed but had very little control over the fact that he was walking. The worst thing about this was he could still think somewhat straight, which made the horror of being controlled that much more real.

Oberon, with a smile – "You know me?"

Xander – "Umm. No. But you seem nice for a vampire."

Oberon frowned – "You don't know me?"

Xander – "No. Should I?"

Oberon – "But you are vampire hunter?"

Xander – "Yes. I guess so."

Oberon – "And you have not heard of Oberon?"

Xander – "No. Sorry. But I'm sure you're really great."

Oberon frowned and kept walking, leading Xander on.

Xander – "I was just wondering. Where are we going?"

Oberon, still frowning – "House."

Xander – "Oh. Umm, look. I don't mean to insult you by not knowing about you. I'm don't know about vampires that much. In fact, I know just the local famous ones like Angelus, Spike, Drusilla."

Oberon, casually – "Not know them."

Xander – "You don't? But they're the biggest vampires in town."

Oberon – "I am new to Sunnydale. I don't know this place. You teach me?"

Xander – "Um, okay. Sure. I can tell you things. What do you want to know?"

Oberon – "Tell me .. this."

Xander looked at her confused then realized that she was touching a street light.

Xander, faltering a little – "That's a street light."

Oberon – "How does it work? The light."

Xander, giving her a weird look – "Uh. It's electrical."

Oberon tried the word – "Elet-crital?"

Xander – "Eleck-trickal"

Oberon, smiling – "Electrical. What is electrical?"

Xander – "You don't know what electricity is?"

Oberon shook her head.

Xander – "You know, it's like lightning."

Oberon – "lightening? Like in clud?"

Xander – "Clud?"

Oberon pointed up to the sky – "Cluds. In ceilo."

Xander thought about it, taking ceilo to mean something like ceiling. Since they were outside, the closest thing to a ceiling would be a sky. And what's in the sky? Clouds!

Xander – "Oh, you mean clouds. Yes. Like lightening in clouds."

Oberon looked along the street which was lined with street lights and was impressed – "Lot of magic."

Xander, getting pulled along once again by Oberon – "You're not from around here, are you?"

Oberon – "No."

Xander – "And if you say you're from the old-country, I'm going to slap you."

Oberon – "Huh?"

Xander – "Nothing. Um, where are we going again?"

Oberon – "House."

Xander – "Okay. Look, I'm not too proud to beg for my life. So please don't kill me."

Oberon gave him a smile back – "You tell me things. I not kill you."

Xander, nodding – "Oh, okay. Good. I'm good with talking. People even tell me I talk too much sometimes."

Oberon, giving Xander another look – "You are .. hmm."

Xander decided not to ask what hmm meant.

O-O-O-O

About half way through lunch, the next day, Xander walked into the library to find the scoobies researching. He looked a good deal paler than was healthy.

Xander – "Hey, what's going on?"

Willow – "We're researching reasons behind why people would have their brains removed."

Xander, considering this – "Why? Who cares what happens to a few vampires?"

Giles hemmed and tossed the morning newspaper across the table.

Xander picked it up and read the front page – "Sunnydale has been reported to have one of the highest cases of vandalism in California State? Mayor is starting a crack down with the help of the local PD?"

Giles – "Sorry. Look on the third page."

Xander opened the newspaper and frowned – "Respected grocer found with brains missing. Oh. So it's not just vampires. That sucks. At least the grocer didn't keep walking around without a brain.. did they?"

Willow – "I don't think so. He's being held down in the morgue."

Xander sat down in a chair and picked up a book to go into research mode.

Willow – "Xander. Are you okay?"

Xander, not looking up from the book – "Fine."

Cordelia, half cringing and half concerned – "You look pastier than normal. It's not a good look."

Xander – "I'm fine. Hey, you don't think these guys with their brains missing could be the work of those face-eater things my vampire was talking about?"

Buffy, frowning at Xander – "I wouldn't think so. Otherwise wouldn't they be called brain-eaters? Their faces hadn't even been touched. Umm. Xander? What's up with you today?"

Xander – "Nothing. I'm fine. Better than fine. Just a little tired."

Buffy looked at him over the top of her blue shades and frowned. Then she got up out of her chair. Xander reacted and did the same thing. The others looked over in concern.

Buffy, carefully – "Xander, what's going on?"

Xander – "What? nothing's going on. Why are you looking at me like that for?"

Buffy – "You tell me."

Xander – "Tell you what Buff? Nothing is going on."

Buffy – "What have you done since I saw you last?"

Xander – "Oh um, I, um. It's nothing."

Buffy came up, sniffing at him with disgust.

Buffy – "This is not nothing."

Xander, chuckling dismissively – "Buffy? We talked about this before. When you thought I was a vampire before, you actually smelled my evil twin. Whatever you think is happening now, you're wrong. That's all there is to it."

Buffy lunged forward and grabbed Xander's wrist before he ran for it. She flipped his hand over so his palm was up and pulled back his sleeve.

Buffy – "What's this?"

Xander, trying to unsuccessfully unroll his sleeve – "It's nothing. It's just a scratch."

Buffy – "No. It's not a scratch. That's a vampire bite."

Cordelia got up and looked at Xander in shock – "Xander? What happened? Have you been hunting vampires without us?"

Xander tried to talk but the words wouldn't come – "She, I, we, I can't. Buffy, let me go. Please."

Buffy didn't let him go. Instead, she pushed him into the chair and held him there.

Buffy – "Okay Xander. Now one's judging you here but you have to tell us what you did."

Cordelia, angrily – "And then we'll beat you within an inch of your life."

Buffy – "Cordy, could you um, just stay quiet for a while?"

Cordelia – "What? Why! He might have been cheating on me with a vampire. And it's not even you. It's not you, is it?"

Willow – "Xander, just tell us what happened. We'll try to understand."

Xander's mouth quivered a little as if he was trying to tell them and Buffy smelled fear and frustration coming of him in waves.

Giles, taking a closer look – "I don't think he can. He seems to be under some form of enchantment."

Buffy – "It's okay, Xander. Just relax and breathe. We'll figure this out."

Xander sighed in relief and nodded.

Buffy – "Giles, who could do this to him? I'm guessing they're a vampire. From what I've read, not a lot of vampires can do the thrall thing. Not even all the really old ones. The master could and Drusilla can a little too. But I don't think either of them can do it this well."

Giles, nodding – "It's a rare gift. From what I've read the only vampires who have it are those that have shown some form of psychic ability in life. Drusilla is a good example as she was a seer."

Buffy – "So you think I could do it?"

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Buffy – "Come on. I've got psychic abilities. The Slayer radar and prophetic dreams. They're sort of psychic."

Giles – "Oh, I see what you mean. It's guess that it's possible."

Cordelia – "I never knew Angel had psychic abilities? How come no one told me?"

Buffy – "He didn't. Why would you think that?"

Cordelia – "Because he could thrall you."

Buffy – "Oh, um, that's a sire to childe thing. It's not the same."

Willow, to Xander – "Did Drusilla do this to you?"

Xander shook his head.

Cordelia – "He could be lying."

Xander rolled his eyes.

Buffy – "No. The fact that Xander's not dead makes me think it's someone else. Drusilla would just kill him. Or turn him."

Cordelia – "She might not. She might have kept him like this so she can snack on him again tonight."

Buffy – "No. If she wanted to keep him under her control, she would have chained him to the wall like all the other victims. Besides, Drusilla has an earthier smell. Whoever bit Xander smells more like .. cinnamon?"

Xander – "I had some donuts earlier. I was hungry."

Buffy – "Oh, that explains it."

Willow – "He can talk. I thought he couldn't talk. Xander, tell us who bit you."

Xander sighed and said nothing.

Giles – "I don't think the thrall will allow him to. Perhaps if we found some way to break it or disrupt it."

Willow – "Buffy."

Buffy – "Hmm?"

Willow – "You could do it, couldn't you?"

Buffy – "How?"

Willow – "Like you said, you should have the ability to thrall people. You could just thrall him and tell him to tell you whatever you want."

Xander and Buffy gave Willow almost matching faces of skepticism.

Buffy – "Willow. I've never done that before."

Giles – "It can't hurt to try. I could give you some pointers."

Buffy, surprised at Giles – "Really?"

Giles – "Of course. I've read several books on the subject of enchantments and hypnotism."

Buffy – "Okay. umm, let's do it in your office. Come on, Xander."

Xander stood up and was lead into the office without any problems. Although Buffy thought that the fact he couldn't outrun her had something to do with his obedience.

She sat him down in Giles chair and then turned to Giles. Xander looked up and watched as Giles whispered a few hints to Buffy then left the room.

Buffy, to Willow and Cordelia – "You guys will have to leave too."

Cordelia – "You expect me to leave you alone with my boyfriend?"

Buffy – "You'll distract him."

Xander, nodding – "You are very distracting."

Cordelia grumbled a little but left.

Willow, to Buffy - "You had better behave."

As the Willow closed the door her, Buffy gave Xander a smile that he found very unsettling.

With the same smile, she pulled the chair forward, so that her ankles were dangling on both sides of his knees.

Xander looked down, noticing for the first time how short Buffy's skirt really was. Then he looked up and gulped when he found Buffy with her game face on.

Buffy – "Sorry. I'm just a little excited. I've never tried this before."

Buffy smiled a far-too-toothy smile and held his head in her hands, looking intently into his eyes as she did.

Buffy, as she gently stroked his ears with her thumbs – "Just relax Xander, I promise I won't hurt you."

Xander found himself trapped in her eyes as she seemed to look deeper into him, probing into the depths of soul. Then he felt something very odd and both of them gasped. He could feel Buffy inside his mind, gently exploring with a curious, naughty feeling behind it.

Buffy, fascinated – "Oh god. This.. this is fun."

She chuckled and Xander winced as Buffy's prodding ran into something sensitive.

Buffy, a little more carefully – "Sorry. I'll just back out… Hey, do you feel that?"

Xander nodded, still a slave to her eyes.

Buffy concentrated her will and something hard and alien in Xander's mind broke. As soon as if did, he groaned and slumped forward. Xander sobbed and hugged her around the waist, pulling her off the desk into his lap.

Xander, very quickly – "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Buffy, secretly very pleased at how he was holding her – "That's fine, Xander. So you're okay now?"

Xander – "You fixed me. Buffy, there's nothing I could ever do to pay you back. It was horrible being like that."

Buffy – "Oh, I could think of something – I mean, no! You don't have to. Umm, just let me go."

Xander collected himself a little and nodded, letting Buffy away. They both stood back up and straightened their clothes a little. Buffy let her game face fade away.

Buffy moved to open the door and Xander stopped her with "Stop."

Buffy – "Why?"

Xander – "Let me get my breath back, okay? I don't want to face them just yet."

Buffy – "You are okay, right?"

When Xander didn't answer, Buffy asked "What happened?"

Xander – "She.."

Buffy – "So it was a girl? And she..?"

Xander nodded guiltily.

Buffy – "Xander, you can't blame yourself for anything. She charmed you."

Xander – "I know, it's just.."

Buffy tilted her head – "It's just you liked it?"

Xander – "Buffy. I-I didn't.."

Buffy moved forwards a little – "I can understand what you're going through. The same thing happened to me when Angelus visited me in my bedroom and we.. we made love. When I was with him, I couldn't even control how I felt."

Xander – "You never told us that part."

Buffy, crying a little – "I didn't want you to know. I didn't want-"

Xander, interrupting her, holding her on her shoulders – "No, it's okay. You're right. We've both gone through the same thing. Umm, but can you not tell Cordelia about this?"

Buffy nodded – "I wasn't going to."

Xander – "Good because the last time a hot vampire girl sexually assaulted me, it didn't go down so well with her."

Buffy, smirking – "So this new vampire in your life, she's hot?"

Xander, nodding in a so-so way – "In a foreign exchange student sort of way."

Buffy, wiping her tears away – "Cool. So should we go out and face the music now?"

Xander collected himself again and took in deep breath.

Buffy and Xander walked outside to where the others were waiting.

Cordelia, surprised – "That was quick."

Giles – "Did you succeed?"

Buffy nodded – "Yup. It was kind of fun too."

Xander – "For you maybe. I feel violated."

Willow – "Who thralled you?"

Xander – "Oh, yeah. Um, it's like this. She's this really insanely old vampire. She didn't even need to look at me to do that thrall thing. She just clicked her fingers and blam, I'm thralled."

Giles – "Her name, if you would."

Xander – "Oberon."

Giles, squinting at Xander – "Her name was Oberon? Are you sure?"

Xander nodded – "That's right. You've heard of her, right?"

Giles looked over to Willow with a worried look and she gave him one back.

Giles – "I'm Sorry, Xander. I haven't the foggiest who she is."

Buffy – "And that name, Oberon. Isn't that a guys name?"

Cordelia – "Maybe she was a guy."

Xander, giving her a glare – "They weren't a guy. I didn't get bitten by a guy."

Cordelia, smirking – "And you're sure about that?"

Xander was about to say something but then he shrugged and lied – "Good point. She could be a guy."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	21. 7b Spoon bender

O-O-O-O

The Scoobies were in the library, still dealing with the fact that Xander had been turned into some vampire's slave for the night.

Cordelia, snuggling possessively up to Xander – "Oh, you poor boy. She didn't hurt you, did she?"

Xander shook his head – "Not that much. Just my wrist where she bit me. That hurt."

Buffy – "Giles, do you think this Oberon girl could have something to do with these people getting their brains eaten?"

Giles – "It's remotely possible."

Xander – "Or it could have something to do with Larry."

Buffy – "It's got nothing to do with Larry."

Xander – "I'm just saying because he was there and he's been known to cut people up for parts before."

Buffy, repeating herself – "It's not Larry."

Willow – "Buffy, we should consider that maybe it is."

Buffy, sighed – "It's not Larry. I didn't smell any brains on him at all. I think the only reason he got targeted by the brainless vampires was because he was sitting in his car which still smells of body parts."

Willow – "Oh. Then, okay. Sorry."

Buffy, grinning – "That's okay."

Giles, to Xander – "This Oberon, what did she do with you?"

Xander – "Mostly we just talked."

Cordelia, looking at Xander oddly – "You just talked?"

Xander – "Yeah. It was weird. She was totally clueless about everything. She didn't know about electricity or television or what cars were called. She spoke broken English and she's never even heard about Angelus or any of his goons. I asked her why and she said that she was sleeping, waiting for something to happen. And now, it's happened and she's here. I tried asking her what it was she was here to do but she wouldn't tell me."

Buffy – "I'm guessing it's not good. Giles, maybe we should ask the council for info on this Oberon. They've got records on all the major vamps, don't they?"

Giles nodded – "Yes, you're right. I'll just call them now. Xander, could you describe them?"

Xander – "Caucasian, about my height, black hair, blue eyes, skinny, not ugly. Acted kind of strange for a vampire too."

Giles – "Strange how?"

Xander – "Strange how she didn't just kill me. She was pretty gentle most of the time."

Giles considered this then walked into his office to use the phone.

Xander – "So what do we do about her?"

Buffy – "We handle her. You go home and rest up. No offense but you look like crap."

Xander, chuckling – "Yeah, that's not offensive at all."

Willow – "She's right. You don't look well."

Xander – "It's probably just the blood loss and the whole trapped-inside-my-own-body-and-unable-to-scream experience. I'll be fine."

Buffy had a serious thinking face on when Xander patted her on the shoulder.

Xander – "Buffy, I'll be fine. Thanks to you."

Buffy – "I was just thinking. We should give a few things before you go home. For protection."

Xander raised an eyebrow – "Like what?"

O-O-O-O

Scene – Xander's bedroom in the basement.

Xander was snoozing in his bed, still tired after the activities from the previous night.

Oberon, softly – "Xander."

Xander didn't stir.

Oberon, in a sing song voice – "Xander, Xander, Xan-der."

Xander still didn't stir.

Oberon pouted and shook him gently. He awoke with a start and gasped when he saw her.

Oberon, pleasantly – "Hello Xander."

Oberon crawled onto his bed and smiled in a way she hoped was seductive. He noticed that today, she had ditched the leather get up and was wearing a one piece blue dress. She had even figured out how to tie up shoelaces as she was wearing some bright red sneakers.

Xander, jumping out of bed – "Uh, hey, Obe. Nice dress. How did you get in?"

Oberon, simply – "I asked."

Xander, panicking – "Umm, umm, okay. I have a present for you."

Oberon paused for a moment then smiled pleasantly – "A present?"

Xander walked over to the mini-bar fridge he owned and pulled out a container full of blood and held it out for Oberon.

Oberon hopped off the bed and took it, figured out how to open to the container and then sniffed the blood inside.

Oberon, pleased – "You killed for me."

Xander – "No. I brought it from the butchers."

Oberon, not understanding – "Butchers?"

Xander, as Oberon drank from the container – "Butchers, they sell meat. And meat products. Sometimes cheese too."

Oberon, stopping to give Xander a smile – "It's good. I-I.."

She faltered a little and then the container slipped out of her fingers as her eyes grew heavy.

Xander reached for the stake he had left handy on the mini-bar and picked it up.

Oberon, confused – "Stop. You stop! What did you do to me?"

Xander, gritting his teeth as he stayed paralyzed – "I slipped you a mickey. Not only that but it's got LSD in it. So sometime soon, that will all kick in and you won't know up from down. Then you won't be able to control me anymore."

Oberon stumbled back – "But I thought you liked me."

Xander, angrily – "You made me like you."

Oberon, starting to panic – "No, you like me. I like you too."

Xander, glaring at her in confusion – "How stupid are you? I hate you. I hate what did to me and now I'm going to kill you."

Oberon growled and forced her game face on – "No! I will.."

But her focus was drifting faster than she could hold it.

Xander broke free of the thrall and ran forward. Oberon screamed and pushed out with both hands at the last moment, knocking Xander off his feet.

Oberon, to Xander as she walked up the stairs – "You stay. Stay."

Xander groaned and stayed in place as Oberon escaped from his home. She stumbled through the lounge room, past Xander's dad who was too busy being drunk in front of the TV to notice her. She practically stumbled straight through the front door but stopped herself in time to open it without breaking it off its hinges.

Once outside, she tried to shake her head clear but was unsuccessful. She walked off down the road, hoping to get somewhere safe before she fell completely into a drug induced stupor.

On the other side of the house, Giles was holding Buffy back from chasing after Oberon.

Buffy, whispering – "What are you doing? You remember the plan. Xander drugs her and I slay her. That's the plan."

Giles, letting her go – "There's been a change of plans. We wait until falls asleep and then we kill her."

Buffy turned around and gave him an angry look – "Why?"

Giles – "Because, while you were eavesdropping on Xander, I got a cellphone call. It turns out that the council knows who this Oberon is. And they're very very dangerous."

Buffy – "Like I care. I've killed dangerous vampires before. Like, um, the master. That was me."

Giles – "Not like this. Buffy, she's a Slayer."

Buffy, blinking at him in confusion – "She's a what?"

Xander – "She's a what?"

Giles and Buffy both blinked, surprised that Xander snuck up on them.

Xander – "Look, I don't care what she is. Why aren't we killing her?"

Giles – "Xander, she was a Slayer in life."

This made Xander hesitate a little.

Xander – "Really? So she's like Buffy?"

Giles – "No. Not at all. She went psychotic when she was turned. The council tried it's best to contain her but wasn't very successful in that endeavor. She wiped entire towns off the map and in Angkor, Cambodia she did the same to almost an entire regiment of battle hardened soldiers."

Both Buffy and Xander had questions about this.

Buffy – "How big is a regiment?"

Xander – "I'm guessing it's big. Giles, are you sure you've got the right girl? Cos I can't picture that."

Giles – "I am reasonably sure. The description you gave matched our records perfectly."

Buffy – "Okay. And now I'm going to ask, how come I haven't heard of her before?"

Giles – "Because she's supposed to be dead. There hasn't been a single trace of her for over six hundred years."

Buffy groaned – "Fine. Whatever. Now let's go kill her."

Xander – "Whoa there. Buffy, I'd like to kill her as much as the next guy but hello, doesn't the fact that she killed an army regiment phase you a little?"

Giles – "Xander is right, in his own way. We should wait until day. Then we will have the advantage."

Buffy shook her head – "No. We've got the advantage now. She drank some of the blood we doped. If we're going to kill her anytime, it should be now."

Xander – "Okay, I admit. That makes some sense. But how are we going to find her?"

Buffy rolled her eyes – "Do we keep forgetting that I'm a vampire? I can track her."

Xander and Giles gave her doubtful looks.

Giles – "Your tracking abilities haven't proven to be that accurate."

Buffy – "I'd do a lot better if I had someone to teach me how my nose is supposed to work. But you've got to admit I've gotten better. I tracked Larry. And that Doberman."

Xander – "Buffy, if you would remember, we were only tracking the Doberman because you thought it was a demon."

Buffy – "Oh. Yeah. But I tracked it good, didn't I? All the way from across town."

Xander – "That's because dogs mark their territory on every tree they come across."

Buffy – "Oh come on. I can do this. I think she must've spilt some blood on herself because I've got a real good scent going on here."

Xander looked to Giles, who shrugged almost unnoticeably.

Xander – "Fine. Let your nose do the walking."

Buffy grinned and walked out onto the street. She walked one way, frowned, spun on her heels and started walking the other direction down the street.

Buffy, squeezing between Xander and Giles who were following her – "Sorry. I think she went this way instead."

O-O-O-O

Scene – The Bronze.

Willow and Cordelia were sitting down, killing time with chit chat and trying not to worry about Xander.

Cordelia looked tired yet very tense. Anxious was a very good word for her.

Willow – "Cordelia, don't take this the wrong way but you've been acting a little strange tonight."

Cordelia, taking a sip of coke – "Have I?"

Willow – "Yes. You have. Is everything okay?"

Cordelia – "Yeah. Sure."

Willow frowned – "Okay. What's wrong? You're worried about Xander, aren't you?"

Cordelia – "So? Can't I worry about him? He could die."

Willow – "I'm sure he won't. Buffy wouldn't let that happen."

Cordelia – "But he could. When I got into this, I never really thought we could die. I thought if we did everything we could to stop ourselves dying then we wouldn't. But we do."

Willow – "Umm, well, uh. People die. It's a fact of life. It's not like we want it or anything."

Cordelia – "Yes but.."

Willow – "But what?"

Cordelia – "It's that vampire's fault."

Willow – "Who? Oberon? Buffy?"

Cordelia – "No. Xander. His stupid twin. He had to tell me that I died, didn't he?"

Willow – "By him coming here, he's changed our timeline. So you probably won't die at all. See. Silver lining."

Cordelia – "Sure. I won't die as long as I stay away from LA. Which leaves me with what? Staying here for the rest of my life?"

Willow – "What's so bad about that?"

Cordelia – "What's so bad? Are you crazy? I've wanted to leave Sunnydale since I was six years old and I didn't even know it was the hellmouth. I wanted to go to LA and become an actress. Or a model. Or a scuba diving instructor. Of some combination of all of the above. And I wanted to be famous and get married and have a bunch of kids and see those kids have kids. And then maybe die in Paris. That was my big plan. And now it's not going to happen at all."

Willow, cringing a little – "It could."

Cordelia – "Come on, Willow. I probably won't even make it to graduation. You remember what the vampire said? That there was no one else to send back in time. He was the last of us and he wasn't even alive."

Willow – "That's not true. Umm, he said something about Oz being alive."

Cordelia – "But that happens in ten years. Just ten years? How am I supposed to do everything I wanted to do in less than ten years?"

Willow, a little depressed – "You, um, I don't know. But he came back to stop that whole thing, didn't he?"

Cordelia – "In case you didn't notice, I think Xander goes insane in the future. Insaner. It probably had something to do with seeing all his friends die. And maybe how he got shisk-kebabbed."

Willow – "But we can stop all this happening. It'll turn out differently this time, I promise."

Cordelia – "But don't you see? This is it. This is as good as my life gets. I make it as far as going to high school and dating Xander fricken Harris."

Cordelia looked down in her drink sullenly and Willow frowned.

Willow – "Cordelia. Umm. Do you love Xander?"

Cordelia blinked at Willow – "Huh?"

Willow – "Xander. Do you, you know, love him?"

Cordelia, uncharacteristically shy – "I umm.. yes. I guess so."

Willow – "Have you told him?"

Cordelia – "Tell him THAT? Oh no. I couldn't do that."

Willow – "I think that if you love him, you should tell him."

Cordelia – "Right. And come off as the crazy person. God, I'm crazy just for telling you this. What was I thinking?"

Willow put her hand on Cordelia's before the tall brunette could walk off. Cordelia stopped and looked down at her hand.

Willow – "It's okay. Seriously. I think.. I think he might love you back."

Cordelia sat back down but didn't say anything.

Willow, more confidently – "In fact, I'm sure there's some lovage involved."

Cordelia, amused? – "You really think so?"

Willow – "Definitely. He's, um, always had a thing for beautiful people."

Cordelia chuckled – "It's funny. Most people do. Oh, hey, you just called me beautiful!"

Willow – "No, well, uh, maybe. Oh come on, you know you are."

Cordelia – "Yeah but its fun having other people say it. And, I guess I should return the favor by saying you're beautiful too."

Willow, skeptically – "Yeah. Thanks."

Cordelia – "No really. You've got a .. a style that is .. You're not ugly. It's mainly your clothes."

Willow, groaned – "Don't start on my clothes again. Please."

Cordelia – "But it's true. Your clothes do nothing with the assets you've got."

Willow, whispering – "But I don't have any assets."

Cordelia rolled her eyes.

Cordelia – "Have you ever seen catwalk models? Like in real life? They're skinny and they've got none of the assets you're thinking about. The trick is to play to your strengths. You've actually got a lot going for you. You're not overweight. You've got nice skin and a very expressive face. Plus, clothes hang off you very nicely. With the right clothes and some hair styling, we could have you looking half way decent."

Willow – "Just half way?"

Cordelia – "Okay. All the way decent. Happy?"

Willow, smiling – "Very. But you should still tell Xander. Because maybe it is like you say. Maybe this is as good as it gets. If that's how it is then the only thing that would make it any more bearable is that we're all here to comfort each other. And to take comfort in each other while we still have the time to."

Cordelia – "Geez. You just think twenty four seven, don't you?"

Willow smirked – "It's a character flaw. I know."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Sunnydale streets.

Buffy was still leading Giles and Xander along as she tracked Oberon across town.

Xander, walking behind her – "Hey, Buffy. This tracking business has me thinking. You can smell drugs, right?"

Buffy – "Uh huh. I can even smell some of them after they're ingested. Marijuana and alcohol are really easy to pick. Steroids are trickier. Haven't figured out painkillers yet because they blend really easily."

Xander – "Okay. Question answered. So how did you know Oberon wouldn't be able to smell the drugs we gave her in the blood?"

Buffy, chuckling – "Because we gave her things I couldn't smell. Rohypnol and LSD mostly. A little touch of methanol to give it that extra kick. Normally, you can smell alcohol but when you mix it with blood, it loses its volatility and thus, you can't."

Xander, giving Buffy a weird look – "And you'd know this how?"

Buffy – "Uh, it's just one of those things you know. You know?"

Giles – "I caught her adding some whiskey to her blood."

Xander, chuckling – "Oh. heh heh."

Buffy – "It actually made it taste a little better. Only a little bit though. I don't think I'll try it again."

They stopped at a crossroads and Buffy took in a few deep sniffs, looking very silly.

Buffy – "This way, no, that way."

And they walked that way into a street lined with the plague of Sunnydale, abandoned warehouses.

Xander – "So, Buffy, I know your hearing is better and your sense of smell is too. But what else did you get with the vampire package?"

Buffy – "Umm. Night vision. Oh and the whole seeing blood running through people's veins thing, which is why I wear these glasses."

Buffy tapped her blue glasses for effect.

Xander – "So that's it? Super hearing, super smelling and night vision?"

Buffy – "As far as I know."

Xander – "And just how good is your smell?"

Buffy – "What's with all the questions?"

Xander – "I'm just curious."

Buffy – "You know, the average human nose can be trained for tracking too."

Xander – "No it can't."

Buffy – "That's what I said when Giles told me that."

Giles – "It's true. From what I've been told."

Xander – "But it's not true. It's so obvious that it's not true."

Buffy – "I think it really might be true. We just don't use our noses for much in modern society. In the bush, a good nose can keep you alive. If you smell smoke or ash, there could be fire near. If you can smell something dead, there's probably just decay or maybe there's a predator nearby. I bet the only thing you use your nose for is to smell food."

Xander – "And sometimes hair… But you can't track people using my nose. You just can't. It's not that good."

Buffy – "Maybe we could, if we trained you enough. Obviously the human nose isn't as sensitive as dogs or pigs. But our brains can compensate for this a little bit. It's like how we don't have eyes as good as birds of prey. But we would see better than they would if they had our eyes."

Xander – "Uh huh. Right."

Giles – "No, Xander. That is true enough. I can see quite well without my glasses and I've got terrible vision."

Xander, giving Giles a weird look – "Then why do you wear glasses?"

Giles – "Because it's a strain not to. I get quite painful migraines if I try to read without my glasses."

Buffy stopped suddenly and the men behind her stopped.

Buffy, turning to them – "Hey, do you smell that? Uh, forget I asked. Of course you don't."

Giles – "What is it?"

Buffy, plainly – "I smell brains. Oberon's scent is getting stronger too. Her nest must be somewhere around here."

Xander – "Hold on. That first part. You smell brains?"

Buffy nodded easily.

Xander – "And you know what brains smell like?"

Buffy nodded just as she did before.

Xander – "And we just happen to be where Oberon lives?"

Buffy nodded some more – "Yup. I think we just solved the case of the brain-snatchers."

Xander, to Giles –"But why would she steal people's brains?"

Giles – "I couldn't say."

Buffy – "I'm thinking it's because she's a psycho. And Xander, she didn't steal them. Stealing brains generally involves the brains being intact. What I think she did was poke a little whole in the back of people's heads and suck their brains out."

Xander, cringing – "Buffy, do you.. You don't even see how disgusting that is, do you?"

Buffy considered this and shrugged in a non-committal way.

Buffy – "But I think it explains those brain-dead vampires. She's probably still part Slayer like me. That's why she doesn't just target humans but vampires too. Oh, Xander. I just realized, you're lucky she didn't suck your brains out when she had the chance."

Xander – "Yes. Yes, I am. Or the people who had their brains sucked out are just extremely unlucky."

Buffy – "Hey, Giles. Can vampire's live on a diet of brains?"

Giles – "How would I know that? I've never heard of one trying."

Buffy – "Oh? Because I think I might try it… What?"

Xander – "I think we need to have a talk later."

Buffy, confused – "About what? Oh, stop. She's around here. Yup, she's in this place right there. Not the best choice for a nest in my opinion."

Buffy nodded towards the front door of a giant ancient wooden warehouse that was in a state of gross disrepair.

Xander, whispering – "Do you hear anything?"

Buffy – "Ssh. I'm listening."

After a few moments, she shook her head.

Buffy, quietly – "No sounds. She's probably asleep. Okay, let's go in. If she really is a Slayer, she could sense me coming in. She could still be dangerous so stay behind me."

Xander and Giles both nodded in acknowledgment and readied stakes.

The trio crept into the warehouse. It was bigger on the inside than it looked from outside. Old dusty mining equipment and hard hats were littered around the rooms they passed by. They followed Buffy into some sort of large room that looked a bit off somehow.

Around the room, things had been moved and the dust had been unsettled.

And in the middle of the floor, there was a small puddle of blood. Buffy approached it and looked down at it. Then her head snapped up and she spun around in time to see Oberon standing between Xander and Giles. She pushed outwards with both hands and the two men flew sideways and slammed against the walls of the building.

Oberon growled ferally at Buffy in game face – "Slayer."

Buffy – "That's right, cave girl. And you know what that means don't you?"

Oberon paused and frowned – "No."

Buffy – "Then let me spell it out for you. Slaying time."

Buffy swung with an upper cut, clipping Oberon on the chin – "Gimme an S!"

Buffy performed a sweep kick, knocking Oberon off her feet – "Gimme an L!"

Then Buffy stood over Oberon and pulled out a stake and smile – "Eh, forget the cheer. Let's just get a goal."

Oberon growled and Buffy dropped the stake and clutched at her neck.

Buffy choked with utter bewilderment and Oberon pushed her aside as she continued gagging.

Oberon, snarling – "It's because of you. You took Xander from me."

Buffy gave Oberon a look of confusion as she seemed to be held in place by an unseen force.

Oberon, angrily – "You took everything from me."

Buffy, raspily – "Girl, once I figure out how to get out of this, I'm going to kill your crazy butt."

Oberon, laughing – "You can't kill me. I am the prophesized vampire! I am the ABOMINATION!"

Buffy continued giving her a weird look and then her eyes bugged out as she was slowly lifted up by the neck until she hung at least a foot off the ground.

Oberon – "And you're NOTHING!"

Buffy, looking down at the floor she wasn't touching – "You've got to be kidding me. Telekinesis!"

Then Xander screamed wildly and Oberon turned around in time to get spear tackled by him. They hit the floor hard and went straight through it, taking out half of the floor boards in the room as they did.

Buffy fell back to ground and rubbed at her neck – "Oww."

Giles got up slowly, still a little dazed from the surprise attack. He walked up to the hole Xander had made and looked down – "Oh dear lord. Xander, you brave, foolish boy."

Buffy, quickly got up and looked in the hole herself – "Oh CRAP!"

Buffy's echo from the hole – "Oh CRAP! Oh crap! oh crap. crap. rap. rap. rap."

The floorboards seemed to be covering an inexplicably deep, wide hole into the earth. Even with Buffy's night vision, she couldn't cut through the darkness to see the bottom.

Buffy – "That's a deep hole. You don't suppose it's got an underground river or something soft at the bottom, do you?"

Giles – "There's always hope."

Buffy, nodding – "Then I'm going after him."

Before giving Giles a chance to object, Buffy hopped in.

The world of flashlights left like a flash behind her. She hit a soft dirt wall in the dark and tumbled in mid-air. Then she hit another wall and the world started spinning in an unacceptable way. Then the ground came rushing up at her. She could tell because of the lights rushing up to meet her at the bottom of the hole.

O-O-O-O

Buffy woke up to the feeling of someone slapping her.

She lashed out and heard a manly "Oof!"

Her eyes flashed open and realized that she had just hit a mud-covered Xander.

Buffy, also covered in mud – "Oh, Xander. Sorry."

They seemed to be in some underground cavern. Burning oil torches littered the walls.

Xander, relieved – "You're okay?"

Buffy – "Yeah. Where's bad head girl?"

Xander – "I don't know."

Oberon, not muddy at all – "Here."

They both looked in the direction of the voice and a shockwave rippled through the mud towards them. They both dodged to the sides but were hit by something invisible anyway. It flung them across the room. Xander ended up being slammed against a hard rock face while Buffy was tossed up to hit the roof and fall back into the mud, face first.

Buffy growled, making air bubbles in the mud then jumped out of the muck on to her feet. She spun and threw something in a flash. Then Buffy found Oberon holding the stake she just had thrown in her hand. Oberon tossed the stake aside.

Oberon – "I don't need wood to kill you."

Oberon growled and slashed out at the air and Buffy fell over with fresh claw marks across her face.

Buffy got up again and tried running at Oberon. Oberon made a dismissive gesture and Buffy was thrown sideways into a rock.

Buffy groaned in pain and got up again.

Oberon – "You can't beat me. You just aren't good enough."

Xander ran towards the older Slayer with a sharp piece of wooden floorboard. Oberon didn't even turn towards him. She just held a hand in his direction and as he brought the floorboard down, it hit and splintered against a force field. Then Oberon merely pushed slightly in his direction and he was tossed away to slide through the mud.

Xander – "Stop it!"

Oberon looked his direction.

Xander, crying – "What is your problem? Why are you doing this to us?"

Oberon – "She's controlling you. She must die."

Xander, getting back up to confront her – "She's not controlling me. You're controlling me."

Oberon moved up to him and gently stroked Xander's hair. He had no choice but to stand there and take the treatment.

Oberon – "She doesn't love you like I do."

Xander – "You don't know what love is."

Oberon – "Y-yes. I do. I love you. You love me."

Xander – "No. That's not love. You make me do what you want. I'm your slave, not your lover."

Oberon shook her head in pain – "No. That's her. She told you to say that."

Xander – "No. She didn't tell me to do anything."

Oberon – "But she did. You're hers."

Xander – "No. I'm nothing of Buffy's. Buffy isn't my girlfriend."

Oberon blinked – "But I smell her on you. She gave you her mark."

Xander – "She gave me her what? Oh, you mean she bit me? Yeah, that was just a thing. It didn't mean anything."

Oberon looked at him oddly.

Xander – "There was a magic mishap and she was under the influence of a love spell. She overpowered me and.. that happened."

Oberon, hopeful – "Oh. Then you can be with me?"

Xander thought about what Oberon was asking.

Xander – "Look, Obe. I don't think it could work out. You're.. well, you don't have a good grasp on reality. And I already have a girlfriend. A human girlfriend, who I love very much. So please, would you let me go back to her?"

Oberon stared at Xander and look as she realized for the first time the horrors of what she had done to him. How she had used him to make herself feel alive with no regards of his well being.

She kept stroking his hair and closed her eyes as she started to sob. Her game face fell away and she turned back to looking like the wide-eyed innocent looking girl that Xander knew she wasn't.

Oberon – "I hurt."

Xander, lukewarmly – "That's probably just the LSD kicking in."

Meanwhile, Buffy was recuperating against a boulder. This wasn't what she was expecting for a Slayer on Slayer fight to the death. But at least she wasn't getting tossed around like a pinball anymore. A smile crept onto her face when she thought about Oberon doing that to Angelus.

Yes, this new girl could be very useful if they could rein her in. Buffy looked over at the other Slayer and thought up a few entertaining methods to do just that. One of these methods involved actual reins.

While she was thinking, she looked around the cavern they were in. Those torches were kind of convenient. And that's a strange looking rock.

Buffy looked at the funny rock a bit longer and realized it wasn't a rock at all but a dead body. She looked around the cavern, only just realizing now that the room was littered with similar bodies.

Then she shrugged like this was nothing surprising.

Buffy, calling out to Oberon – "Hey, um, Oberon?"

Oberon stopped preening Xander to look over at Buffy.

Buffy – "Hi, um, just so we're clear. We're not trying to kill each other any more, are we?"

Oberon growled and Xander said in a commanding tone – "No."

Oberon blinked at him.

Xander – "Oberon. Buffy's a good person. You're not going to kill, okay?"

Oberon considered this and nodded submissively.

Buffy – "Okay. Cool. So just one question. How do brains taste?"

Oberon, looking at Buffy oddly – "Brains?"

Xander – "Mushy grey stuff inside your head."

Now Oberon looked at him strange.

Buffy – "We know you're the one who's been sucking people's brains out. This is where you've been dumping the bodies, isn't it?"

Xander looked down at the mud and realized the atrocity he was standing in.

Xander, trying to get out of the mud – "Gah!"

Oberon on the other hand just shrugged – "I didn't kill these people."

Buffy – "Obie, please. We know all about you. You've killed tons of people. Maybe even more than my boyfriend has."

Oberon – "But I didn't kill these."

Buffy – "Well, then who did?"

Then a grating voice quaked through their minds like a chisel against a blackboard and it said one word that brought Buffy and Xander to their knees.

"Slayers."

Buffy and Xander both groaned as raw hateful emotion washed through them and left their very souls raw. Oberon gritted her teeth in pain but didn't go down, obviously more resistant to this sort of attack.

Then they saw the source of that foul internal voice. It was a purple skinned, roughly humanoid demon with a head not entirely dissimilar to an octopus. Large bulbous lumps continually bulged and pulsated all across its body. Just looking at in its direction made Xander's skin crawl. He felt ill just being in the same room as it.

It dropped a lifeless and brainless body into the mud pile and floated towards the trio.

Oberon roared at the monstrosity and with her telekinesis she flung a boulder out of the mud and at it.

Then the unthinkable happened and the boulder stopped in mid air. Oberon tried to push harder with her mind and the boulder barely budged, seemingly held in place.

The brain invader spoke again into their minds – "You shall make a fine meal."

A psychic whip lashed out and struck Oberon, knocking her over.

Oberon, in shock – "Huh?"

Buffy – "Oh great. It's got telekinesis too. Was there a convention in town or something?"

Xander – "Uh, maybe we should help."

Buffy shrugged and threw a stake. It lodged into the purple fiend and it wailed in agony.

The cave shook and the air warped and both Buffy and Xander started bleeding from cuts that weren't there a second ago.

Oberon, holding up her hands – "No!"

She let loose a psychic attack, which pushed the demon backwards but little else.

The demon spoke once more into their minds – "This is futile. Give yourself to me and know the peace of true death."

Oberon grit her teeth again and the demon's psychic powers clashed with her own as she set up a force field to protect herself and the other two.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Fire flew out of the torches and into a fiery vortex of super heated flame where the psychic forces clashed against each other.

Xander – "Oberon. What are you doing?"

Oberon, smiling sadly - "Helping."

Buffy - "Why does your helping looks a lot like us dying?"

She turned her head and looked at Xander. She had blood dripping down the front of her scalp and tears mixed with blood coming out of her eyes.

Oberon, smiling sadly – "Xander. I'm sorry."

Then Xander and Buffy were slammed against a wall of mud. Then they flew up, through the hole in the ceiling which they had fallen in from. Like a skyrocket, they flew up towards street level.

With them gone, Oberon could focus on the threat at hand.

Oberon – "You're good but no one can beat me."

Demon, talking into her mind – "Give in."

Oberon – "Never."

More flames were drawn out of the torches and the firestorm in the middle of the room became a small sun of glaring intensity.

The demon started to panic and his control faltered – "What are you doing? You will destroy both of us!"

Oberon – "That is why."

O-O-O-O

Suddenly, Buffy and Xander seemed to jump out of the hole in the floor and Giles jumped a little himself.

Giles – "What in blazes? Buffy? Xander? How did you do that?"

Buffy and Xander both looked behind them into the hole they had just been launched out of. Somewhere near the bottom of the hole, they could see a bright light that seemed to be getting closer at a very dangerous speed.

Buffy – "RUN!"

And all three of them ran. They ran out of the room, down the corridor and out the front door. The ground shook and they heard what sounded like a volcano going off. Then a giant beam of fire spewed out of the roof of the warehouse like some sort of glowing geyser that shot high into the clouds.

Giles – "My lord!"

O-O-O-O

The next day, in the library.

All the Scoobies were assembled and talking about the night before.

Cordelia was furious – "How come vamps keep trying to boff my boyfriend?"

Buffy, chuckling – "No. The question is why doesn't it happen more than it does?"

Buffy noticed that Xander wasn't taking this very well.

Buffy, to Xander – "Sorry."

Xander – "It's okay. I'm just confused. She didn't actually seem that.. evil."

Buffy – "Except for how she targeted you because you knew me and how she killed a whole bunch of people and .. Yeah. She didn't seem that evil."

Willow – "It could have been the drugs. That would make her act differently."

Xander, shaking his head – "I don't really think she was evil at all. Just really lonely."

Buffy – "And crazy. Don't forget crazy."

Xander – "Yeah. Obviously. But I don't think she even knew what she was doing was wrong. She was just acting on impulse."

Willow – "But I'm surprised we haven't heard of her before. She was a vampire that used to be a Slayer AND she had telekinetic powers and obviously a few pyrokinetic ones too."

Oz – "That's overachieving."

Willow, nodding – "You would think someone like this would be in history books."

Buffy, shaking her head and looking at Giles – "No she wouldn't. Not if the watchers could do anything about it."

Giles – "What are you looking at me for?"

Buffy, sighing – "Giles. She wasn't just a Slayer. She thought she was that Abomination person in the prophecies. That's why she targeted us. She wanted to get at me because she thought I was stealing her destiny. Giles, are there any other Abominations out there that we don't know about?"

Giles – "No. I checked. There aren't any. There have been some accounts of Slayers turning into vampires before but she was the only one the council thought could be .. could be you. You're the one that prophecies talk about. No one else."

Willow – "At least Oberon went out with a bang."

Xander, cringing – "Willow. That's harsh."

Willow – "Sorry."

Xander – "She might have been crazy and she might have done.. She saved our lives. You weren't down there. You didn't see what she was fighting. If she didn't stop it, I don't think any of us could have either."

With that, Xander got up and left the library as he wasn't in a mood to talk anymore.

Giles – "Xander's right. Her last act in this world was one for good and that in itself demands at least a modicum of respect."

The others thought about this while Cordelia watched her boyfriend walk away.

Buffy - "I wonder what made her so crazy."

Giles - "Despair. The events to Oberon's mental breakdown were in the councils records and they availed them to me just minutes ago. It turns out that in her day, the watchers found her sire chained to a basement wall. She had been feeding them daily on animals, bringing them books, paintings and toys, bathing them and quite possibly other things. When the watchers discovered what her Sire was, they killed them without hesitation. It turns out that they were the only thing keeping them sane, just a small shred of their previous life."

O-O-O-O

Xander found his way back to his home. And then he had found his way to his home away from home, the basement. With a little discomfort, he pulled off his t-shirt to reveal a few very large purple bruises he had gotten from the previous night. Most of the smaller cuts were just angry red lines by now. He sat on the edge of his bed and sighed, obviously in a depressed state.

Things had been a lot easier when he could just hate mass murdering vampires.

Then he heard something and turned to see a pair of silky long legs creeping down the stairs.

He jumped off the bed and picked up a chunky wooden cross and a stake.

Xander – "No. No! You're dead! You couldn't have survived that!"

Cordelia finished walking down the stairs and gave him a weird look.

Xander – "Oh. Cordelia. Sorry. You just reminded me of someone else. Umm, what are you doing here?"

Cordelia, looking around the room – "What? I can't visit?"

Xander, putting down the weapon and the religious symbol – "Uh, sure. Pull up a.. bed?"

Cordelia, sitting down on the bed – "So this is your bedroom?"

Xander, sitting down next to her – "Yup. I've been thinking of redecorating."

Cordelia, putting her hand on his – "Don't bother. It's just fine the way it is."

The mood in the room changed and Xander found himself a little confused.

Xander, suddenly jumping off his bed again with wild eyes – "Oh my god. You're Oberon aren't you? You're using your mind tricks on me again."

Cordelia, concerned – "Xander. I'm not a vampire. I'm Cordelia, you're girlfriend."

Xander, shaking his head – "No, you're not. You wouldn't be here."

Cordelia walked up to Xander and he clenched up as she backed him up against the washing machine.

Cordelia reached out and pulled Xander into a kiss, which he struggled with until he felt the comforting warmth of her body.

When they broke out of the kiss, Xander was still a little confused.

Xander – "Cordelia?"

Cordelia – "Yes. It's me monkey boy."

Xander, with a little crooked smile – "And.. you're in my bedroom."

Cordelia, with her own crooked smile – "And I'm in your bedroom. For obvious reasons."

Xander, a little hesitant – "Uh, are you sure about this? I don't want you to feel pressured into this because of what happened with.. other girls."

Cordelia – "There's no pressure here. I just wondered why should I let vampires have all the fun?"

They she turned with Xander and pushed him down on the bed with a burst of laughter.

Xander, suddenly very worried – "Uh, Cordelia. I kind of don't have any –"

While he was talking, Cordelia pulled out a string of foil packets, each containing a condom. When Xander saw these, he stopped talking and giggled.

Cordelia, smiling – "I guess you never learnt the Girl Guide motto. Be prepared."

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

More in next Chapter.


	22. 8a Equinox

O-O-O-O

Buffy stirred as she felt of hands caressing her in sensitive, sorely neglected places and the press of two bodies molded against her own. She found herself under the sheets in a four poster bed, in between the naked forms of Angelus and Drusilla.

Angelus, her sire and her lover, whispered into her ear from behind – "There's no sleep for the wicked, Buffy. You still have so much more medicine to take."

Buffy purred dozily as his mouth trailed down from her neck and suckled gently on her neck, on the bite marks he first turned her with.

In front of her, Drusilla playfully kissed her on the mouth for a little then gently bit down on her bottom lip, tugging on it with naughty giggles.

Buffy moaned, overwhelmed in a delirious state of ecstasy. She wasn't used to this. She'd never done anything like it before. She had never even dreamed of anything like it before. But here she was being pleasured and played with by not only Angelus but Drusilla at the same time.

From behind her, Angelus pulled apart her legs slightly to allow for better access.

Buffy shook slightly her head in disbelief – "You can't keep be serious. I can't keep going on like this."

Angelus curled around her and she leant back and kissed him. His passion never seemed to end for her.

Angelus – "You'll do whatever I tell you to. Isn't that right?"

Buffy nodded and chuckled. It was absurd to want anything else. What else could she want but this? And as Drusilla snuck under the covers, kissing a line down the center of Buffy's body, she had a realization that she had never been this happy before in her life.

She was a killer. She was a vampire. She lived for nothing more than the next bite and the next bed session. Somehow, because of how Angelus made her feel, this was all alright. This was how she was supposed to be. This was what she was born to be.

He made her complete.

Buffy, nearing the sweetest agony – "I love you."

Angelus, not lying – "I love you too."

It was too much and her body knotted up as she was pushed over the edge.

Buffy arched and cried out. She lost all sense as the world around her flashed white and became warm and soft. After a few seconds, she crashed back down onto the bed and looked around to realize that she had just woken up in her own bed.

She winced as the effects of the dream still ran through her system, leaving her with a guilty but very satisfied feeling.

There was a knock on her door.

Joyce, on the other side of the door – "Buffy? Is everything okay in there?"

Buffy – "Yeah. I, uh, just had a dream."

Joyce – "Okay. I'll be downstairs making breakfast."

Buffy, with a smile – "I'll be right down."

As Joyce walked away from the door, Buffy couldn't help but chuckle wickedly.

Then she frowned and looked down at a small red patch on the sheets.

She looked under the bed sheets and frowned even more - "Okay. That's not normal."

O-O-O-O

Less than half an hour later and Buffy was walking down the corridors of Sunnydale high, intent on reaching the library.

Then she stopped with a look of panic on her face, spun around and shoved Oz against a line of lockers by his neck.

Buffy, a little shocked – "Oz?"

Oz, as she let him go – "Yes?"

Buffy let him go and mumbled – "Sorry. I thought you were something else."

Oz – "I can see that. What's wrong?"

Buffy didn't even consider telling him.

Buffy – "Nothing. I just need to get to Giles."

Oz – "Oh-kay. Mind if I tag along? For my own safety, of course. The corridors of this school just aren't safe."

Buffy nodded and they walked at a speed to the library. Once they got inside, Giles met them with a smile.

Giles – "Arr, Buffy. Just the person I was looking to talk to."

Buffy, after scanning the room – "Could I um, have some blood please. I'm feeling edgy."

Oz, nodding in agreement – "She's got edge today."

Giles nodded and went into his office. He came out with a bottle of blood, twisting the top off just before giving it to her. She took it and tilted it back and let the blood slide down over her tongue into her gut.

It didn't calm her down as much as it normally did which disappointed her.

Giles – "Do you feel better now?"

Buffy nodded a little – "Yeah. I um.. I feel better."

Buffy, looking over at Oz – "I'll be okay from now on. Thank you for the escort."

Oz took this as his cue to leave and quietly did so. Once he had, Buffy turned back to Giles with a look of worry.

Giles – "Buffy, what's the matter?"

Buffy – "I don't know but I think there's something wrong with me. I .. I had a period."

Giles blinked and flustered a little - "Buffy. I've told you before. I'm not really interested in certain aspects of being the Slayer."

Buffy – "No. Not period pains from my Slayer radar. I mean an actual period."

Giles looked at her oddly with a look of confusion.

Buffy, realizing Giles didn't know what she was talking about – "You do know that once a lunar month, girls sort of bleed from their –"

Giles, cutting her off – "Yes. I know that."

Buffy – "Well, I bled last night. A lot. Actually, a hell of a lot."

Giles frowned – "Buffy, vampires don't do that. I'm quite sure about this. You must have nicked yourself somehow."

Buffy, shook her head – "Not where this blood was coming from. I haven't had anything sharp that far, you know, up there. In fact, recently, I haven't had anything up there and it's kind of.. um, I'll shut up now."

Giles – "Yes, no details please. Are you're sure this was menstrual blood?"

Buffy – "Yeah, that's why I'm telling you about it. I don't mind saying, it's kinda freaking me out."

Giles – "And you're sure the blood was yours?"

Buffy – "Well, I didn't taste it, if that's what you're asking. But yeah, I think it was mine. Who else would it be from?"

Giles – "And roughly speaking, what sort of quantity are we talking about here?"

Buffy – "We're talking arterial spray amount."

Giles – "Are you sure? Because I know it might look like a lot of blood but it could –"

Buffy – "Giles! It was a lot of blood! Just drop it. Okay? I just had a period for no reason whatsoever and I want to know why."

Giles – "I agree that this warrants investigation."

Buffy, obviously more relieved – "Yes, that's what I want to hear. Umm, you do mean book type investigation, don't you? Because, hey, any other type might be kind of awkward."

O-O-O-O

At the first available break in school, Giles took Buffy off school campus to the Watcher's warehouse where she was told to remove her underwear and put her legs up in metal stirrups for a few of their doctors to examine her.

It was perhaps the first gynecological examination ever done on a vampire. At least, the only officially sanctioned one the watchers knew of.

Giles discretely left Buffy alone with the doctors and found Robson, the watcher in charge of the research facility.

Robson took Giles into his office.

Robson – "Tea?"

Giles, sitting down – "No, thank you."

Robson, sitting down in his chair – "Suit your self."

Giles – "So what are your first impressions about this.. occurrence?"

Robson – "Well, it is very intriguing. But until we get the tests in from her blood there's only so much we can speculate. What we can speculate on is somewhat troubling."

Giles – "How so?"

Robson opened up a folder and pushed it along the desk to Giles.

He noted a bunch of graphs that looked like heart beats.

Giles – "Are these heart beats?"

Robson – "Actually, that's what our specialists thought they were when they saw them too but they're not. Some time ago, we performed several extensive medical tests on an active Slayer with the latest cutting edge equipment for that time. With her permission I might add. We thought it might give us a better understanding of their powers but the project gave us more questions than it answered."

Giles – "Yes. I believe I've heard about this."

Robson – "You very well may have. One interesting fact that we did discover was that a small section of a Slayer's brain fluctuates in an almost heart-beat fashion when in the presence of vampires. The more vampires, the more it fluctuates. Those graphs are the electroencephalographic output of that precise portion of Miss Summers brain."

Giles looked at the graphs and failed to see the point behind them.

Robson – "As Summers is a vampire, that section of her brain will continually register her own presence."

Giles – "Yes. I gathered that."

Robson, taking sheets out of the folder and spreading them in a line– "Now, if I put the graphs in chronological order, I'm sure you will see a pattern."

Giles stood up, looked down at the graphs and frowned.

Giles – "The signal is becoming more frequent as time moves on."

Robson – "Precisely. Now, we believe that this is normal for a vampire. They do become stronger as they age. But this is Miss Summer's graph for today."

The watcher placed down a graph which had twice the frequency of any other graph there.

Giles – "This is today's?"

Robson – "Yes and she's shown twice the frequency of any of her previous graphs. Then there is the other matter which was brought to my attention by a computer tech with a penchant for astrology. It concerns the dates. Today's date to be precise. It's a bit too coincidental to be a coincidence."

Giles – "Today's date? I wasn't aware of any significance."

Robson - "It's been almost exactly three months, to the day, since Miss Summers was turned. Now our astrologist friend wasn't aware of the implications he had supplied us but I am. The night Miss Summers was reborn was the night Lambronazi called the lull in the vampire's calendar. So that would make today or possibly yesterday, the equinox in this calendar."

Giles took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose – "Oh dear. And in another three months will by the night of St. Vigeous, the night when vampires are at their strongest."

Robson – "Now, it's too early to say for certain but it looks like her vampire side may slowly begin to dominate her psyche until the night of St. Vigeous when it could completely take her over."

Giles – "And that would make Buffy's unusual show of fertility some sort of warning from her Slayer half?"

Robson – "You may very well be right. Well, we've got three months to watch her. So do your job and watch her, Watcher."

Giles, smiling slightly – "Oh, I've been doing that for quite a while now."

There was a knock at the door and both of the watchers turned to find Buffy standing outside the glass windows.

Giles, to Robson – "I will keep you informed of any breaking news."

Robson – "And I will get back to you once we get the results of her tests."

Giles, getting out of his chair – "That would be appreciated."

Robson, getting up also – "Giles. Try not to be so dismal. This may be nothing at all or there may be a way to deal with whatever problems that arise."

Giles – "You mean like tying Buffy down for half of every year?"

Robson, smiling – "That might work. Hey, at least we know she's not pregnant."

Giles chuckled. Next to their charges death, pregnancy in their charges was a watchers worst nightmare by default.

Giles left the room with a smile and found Buffy outside, sucking on a lollypop.

Buffy, with a frown – "I should get a shirt that says half-the-watchers-council-has-seen-me-in-stirrups-and-all-they-gave-me-for-it-was-a-lollypop."

Giles – "Oh, uh, it wasn't that bad, was it?"

Buffy – "Being poked and prodded in perhaps the most sensitive areas I have by cold surgical tools? And also being told how much of an honor this should be for me since I was making gynecological history being the first vampire to actually need a gynecologist? Oh no. It was fun in a not fun way."

Giles – "What flavor is it?"

Buffy – "Hmm?"

Giles – "The lollypop."

Buffy, smiling like an idiot – "Strawberry. My favorite."

Giles – "See. It's not all bad."

O-O-O-O

Buffy got back to school in time for a free study period held in the casual lounge room in the middle of the school.

There were a few classes using it at the moment and a few teachers overseeing it. Snyder took the time to show up and try his hand at overseeing the lack of proceedings in much the same grim way he would hold detention after school.

Buffy came in and settled herself down next to Willow and Cordelia. As she did she noticed Larry and Xander were swapping notes in a corner. This was highly unusual, if not down right suspicious. But Larry had been acting differently recently. This was probably due to the fact that they were in fact a different person. Other people had noticed it too and some rumors were spreading that Larry was becoming interested in boys. Strange, since they had just swapped sexes into manhood because they were interested in girls. But if it wasn't a juicy lie then it probably wouldn't be such a popular rumor.

Some of the girls had been talking about trying to convert Larry back into being straight which made Buffy smile for more than just one reason.

Willow – "Hey Buffy. How did it go with the watchers?"

Buffy – "Umm. I don't think they know anything."

Cordelia, looking up from her chemistry book – "What are we talking about?"

Buffy – "I um.. last night, I had a period."

Cordelia blinked at her then laughed – "So? It's not the end of the world."

A few people looked in their direction and Buffy whispered to Cordelia – "People like me aren't supposed to get them."

Cordelia thought about this and frowned – "Really? Oh. That must save on tampax."

Buffy – "I guess. So what are we studying?"

Willow – "Chem."

Buffy sighed and pulled open her bag to find her books.

Buffy – "You know, I don't know how many classes I'm going to fail this year. I could've sworn this school stuff used to be a whole lot easier before I turned."

Willow – "You just have to work at it a bit more. You'll get it."

Buffy, smiling at the red head – "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Will. But I think the only class I have a sure bet on passing will be this class. Study period."

Willow – "But it's true. You'll pass everything if I have to sweat blood."

Buffy kept smiling at her and her smile got a little crazy looking. Then she shook her head clear and blinked a few times.

Buffy, a little shaken – "Whoa. That was a real intense visual."

Willow – "Are you okay?"

Buffy – "Yeah, I'm fine."

Cordelia – "It's only because you're looking even more spacious than normal."

Buffy, still trying to clear her head – "No, I'm fine."

But she wasn't. Now something was differently of the wrong. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the unwanted emotions that were rising from deep within her self. In the darkness behind her eyelids, heartbeats from around the room came thudding in through her ears and echoed within the coldness of her heart. Something electric sparked within her and she stood up with her eyes unseeing and unfocused.

Buffy, trying to walk away but stumbling – "I can't.. too close to food. Too warm."

Then the floor seemed to rush up at her and she blacked out.

O-O-O-O

On the outskirts of town, construction workers were busy hauling something very large out of the mud, using a bulldozer as a workhorse to pull on the chains wrapped around the object.

Foreman, to the bulldozer – "Okay. That will do."

The bulldozer stopped and the driver hopped out to look at the oddity with the other workers.

Random worker – "What do you think it is?"

The foreman wiped some mud off the large object to reveal some runes etched into the rock surface underneath.

Foreman – "I have no earthly idea."

O-O-O-O

Buffy awoke with a start, finding herself in the school's sick bay and swaddled in blankets.

The school nurse was quickly by her side.

Nurse - "You shouldn't move."

Buffy, pushing them aside – "I'm fine."

Nurse - "No. You're not fine. I think you've got hypothermia."

Buffy looked at her oddly then it clicked.

Buffy – "That's normal for me. Oh and the fainting thing. That was an umm, thing. That's a thing I do sometimes. I've got a condition."

The nurse looked at her skeptically and Joyce rushed into the room to hug Buffy.

Buffy, surprised – "Mom?"

Joyce – "I came as soon as could. Are you okay?"

Buffy, still being hugged – "Yes. I'm fine. I was just a little light headed and then I fainted. It's no big."

Joyce, letting Buffy go – "It is a big to me."

Buffy – "You can relax. I think it's just from the lack of blood. There was that huge period this morning and then I gave some blood to have it tested. I guess I'm just running a little low on the red stuff."

Nurse – "That would explain why you look so pale."

Buffy nodded – "See. Perfectly normal medical explanation. So, I should just take it easy for a few days and I should be fine."

Nurse – "And you should be sure to keep yourself hydrated. Here have a glass of water."

Buffy took the glass - "Thanks. My throat is a little dry."

Joyce, as Buffy drank the water – "Willow's outside looking very worried. I think she cares about you quite a lot."

Buffy – "Yeah. Willow's the bestest friend I could ask for."

Joyce – "You should go talk with her and put her mind at rest and I should go back to work. But first, are you sure you'll be okay?"

Buffy nodded – "I'll be fine. I just need to learn to take everything a bit easier."

Joyce smiled and left the room with Buffy, meeting Willow on the outside.

Willow – "Buffy. Are you okay?"

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "Yes. I'm fine. I wish everyone would stop asking me that."

Joyce – "Well, I'll see you later at home. Goodbye Willow."

Willow – "Goodbye Joyce."

While Joyce was walking away, Willow turned to Snyder and said "Uh, we need to use the toilet. For girl stuff."

Snyder, a little mystified – "Very well. But I will be waiting outside. And Summers, don't you dare think about climbing out the window."

Buffy frowned at the principle and wordlessly followed Willow into the female toilets.

Once inside, Willow pulled out a plastic bladder full of blood out from under her denim overalls which she handed off to Buffy.

Buffy, taking the bladder - "Thanks. I'm not actually thirsty but I'd never say no to free blood."

She bit into it and smiled. She stopped sucking for a second to say "Hey, it's even warm."

Willow – "Really? It felt pretty cold to me. Oh, heh. I must have warmed it for you."

Buffy chuckled a little too and went back to sucking on the bladder. Her thoughts being kept busy about how the blood was kept warm by being held against Willow's hot body.

Then something white hot flashed through her and she dropped the blood bag, stumbled down onto one knee and held onto one of the bathroom sinks to keep herself off the floor. Willow quickly lunged forward and caught Buffy to stop her falling anymore.

Buffy looked back at Willow with a purr and arched to kiss her. Then Willow let her drop and Buffy fell to the floor.

Willow, in shock – "Buffy. Did you just try to kiss me?"

Buffy groaned and propped herself up on her hands, trying to shake her head clear as she did.

Buffy, still groaning – "Oh god. What's happening to me?"

O-O-O-O

Lunch break in the library.

All the Scoobies had come, including Oz. They were all concerned, if not troubled, about Buffy's recent changes.

Giles – "Buffy is undergoing something unheard of. She seems to be entering an estrus cycle. The watchers researching this believe that it may have something to do with the fact that Buffy frequently exposes herself to sunlight which may be stimulating her physiology in ways that the average vampire would never experience."

No one said anything. They just stared at Giles.

Giles – "This blows several theories out of the water. It was believed that vampire's don't have biological clocks. They don't reproduce in any way that could be considered natural. And humans don't have rigidly defined estrus cycles as lesser animals do. But the tests are conclusive."

Cordelia – "In American high school student, please."

Giles – "There's no easy way to put this. So I will just say it out loud. Buffy seems to be going through a period of.. increased sexual awareness."

Xander – "You're saying she's in heat?"

Giles – "That would be a very apt way of saying it."

Buffy, looking edgier than ever – "That would explain a few things. Giles, how do I stop it?"

Giles – "To be entirely honest, it doesn't look like there is any way to stop it. The watchers council has already done several tests on the effectiveness of various drugs. They found none suitable for your unique and unstable condition. At least, none that wouldn't have serious side effects. I'm afraid the only thing to do is ride it out."

Xander chuckled at that last comment then silenced very quickly when Cordelia glared at him.

Cordelia – "Xander. This isn't funny."

Buffy, fuming a little – "How long is this going to last?"

Giles – "Oh, uh, no one knows for sure as this has never been recorded before. The average time of ovulation for humans is three or four days. The menstrual cycle lasts for a lunar month or so. So I would presume that the effects will end some time between four days to two weeks. But I could be wrong. As I have said, no one knows for sure."

Buffy hit her head on the table, somewhat violently.

Buffy, growling with her head face down on the table – "And what am I supposed to do until then?"

Giles – "Well, um, try to act as normal as possible. I would ask that everyone else should keep an eye out for Buffy. She might act in unusual and possibly dangerous ways. So it's best that an eye is kept on her as often as possible in social circumstances."

Buffy – "This couldn't have happened at a worst time. I've got finals in next week. I am so going to fail."

Giles – "Now Buffy, that attitude won't help. Your body is going through a variety of hormonal changes but with the right mindset, you should be able to keep a clear head."

Cordelia – "Your advice is stiff upper lip? God, why don't they have lady watchers who know what it's like to go through puberty?"

Giles – "Actually, there are."

Cordelia – "Really? You're not just saying that?"

Willow – "It's true. I've met some."

Cordelia – "Oh. But my case is sound. Giles, you're not an authority on this subject."

Xander – "Yeah. What you want is someone who gets bit-shah-actually, I won't say it."

Cordelia – "He was going to say bitchy. Which is why you have me here."

Xander – "Wow. I thought you'd be insulted."

Cordelia – "I'm a bitch. It's true. That doesn't mean I'll let you get away with calling me one. I'm keeping my eye on you, Harris."

Buffy, gasped, suddenly remembering something – "Oh, Giles. When I fainted in the lounge, I had a vision."

At this Giles perked up – "Really? Of what?"

Buffy – "I saw a bunch of men pulling a giant muddy box out of the ground with a bulldozer."

Xander – "Sounds more like a Freudian dream to me than a vision."

Buffy, ignoring Xander – "The box had manky hieroglyphics cut into it and I got the distinct feeling that the present inside isn't going to be Hanukkah friendly."

Giles – "That sounds a lot like the recently unearthed relic that's being held at the local museum of natural history. I was going to lend my expertise to the curator earlier this morning but I forgot all about it."

Cordelia – "So I guess now would be a good time to unforget?"

Giles – "Yes. Quite. I'll go do that right now. Buffy, is there anything you need before I go?"

Buffy – "No. I think I'll be okay on my own for a while."

Giles – "Good. Now I should go and umm, yes. I'm leaving."

Giles somewhat awkwardly left with a look of preoccupation on his face.

Once he did, Buffy turned to Cordelia and asked – "Hey, Cordy. Could I ask you something over there?"

Cordelia raised an eyebrow but didn't see the harm in it, so she followed Buffy over to the stacks where they talked at top of the stairs.

Xander and Oz looked at each other.

Xander – "What do you think they're talking about?"

Oz – "Girl stuff."

Xander, snorting – "Yeah. Right. Girl stuff."

Willow, frowning – "No. I think they are. But why didn't Buffy go to me?"

Xander – "Maybe this is something she doesn't want to share with you. You know, doesn't want to gross you out."

Willow – "But she shares things like this with me all the time. And she grosses me out all the time too. We girl talk quite a lot. But I can't tell you about that because then it would be, you know, guy talk. And that's not good."

Xander – "Okay. So if it's not girl talk. What is it?"

O-O-O-O

Buffy – "Come on, Cordy. Pretty please?"

Cordelia, whispering so the others wouldn't over hear – "No. You are not borrowing Xander from me."

Buffy – "But it's not like you're using him... Oh my god. You are! You and Xander are.. oh wow."

Cordelia, folding her arms defensively – "So what if I am?"

Buffy, chuckling evilly – "Oh, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it's kinda hot. Hey, does he still, ugh?"

Buffy lost her balance and slumped over into one of the library aisles. She scrambled and kept herself upright before she hit the floor.

Cordelia – "Buffy?"

Buffy, standing upright again – "I'm fine. I just need to clear my head."

Buffy in two deep breathes and released them both slowly, hymning as she did – "Peeeeeace. Caaalm. Peeeeace. Caaaalm."

Cordelia, standing back – "You really have it bad, don't you?"

Buffy – "That's one way to say it. Look, Cordelia. If there's any possible way –"

Cordelia – "There's not!"

Buffy – "If it's safety you're worried about, you can even tie me down if you –"

Cordelia – "Enough! Buffy, there is no way in hell that is going down. So just hold it in."

Buffy – "I don't mind if you join in. In fact, I'd like it a lot. I've been kind of wondering what –"

Cordelia – "God! I can't believe.. Buffy. Just drop it. Okay?"

Buffy nodded – "Okay. Sorry."

Cordelia, sternly – "And so you should be."

Buffy, turning towards the table – "Hey, Willow. Could I ask a few questions?"

Cordelia's mouth fell open as she gasped in utter shock – "BUFFY!"

Willow frowned and stopped in her tracks.

Cordelia, to Willow – "Willow. Just sit back down. I'll settle this."

Buffy – "What did you do that for?"

Cordelia – "Because I think you've traumatized enough people for one day."

Buffy – "But I need this. I need someone. Anyone. And she's my best friend. She'll understand."

Cordelia – "Before you consider ménage-a-triage with your best friend, have you considered other, more suitable people?"

Buffy – "Like who? Giles? Well, I wouldn't mind that. But I've tried flirting with him and he's just not biting at all. I don't think he thinks of me in that way."

Cordelia, groaning – "I didn't need to know that."

Buffy – "But maybe if I just forced myself on him? Oh wait, I tried that once. It didn't work so well."

Cordelia – "Do you ever listen to yourself?"

Buffy – "What's your point?"

Cordelia – "There's other people in the world. Like umm, oh! How about Larry? The hard-up ex-axe murderer. He already knows about the vampire thing. Plus you two both have so much in common. You've both killed people for one."

Buffy, considering this – "I guess maybe we do have a lot in common. And I've already kissed them. Sort of."

Cordelia – "Really? Well, there you go, girl. You've already got your foot in the door. Just explain to them that you're going through a phase and I'm sure the rest will sort itself out."

Buffy – "But what if they're not interested?"

Cordelia – "Oh please. They're interested. They're a guy. Sort of."

Buffy considered this some more and couldn't help but smile at the possibilities.

O-O-O-O

Scene - The museum of natural history, Sunnydale.

Bodies were spread around the room.

Spike sighed upon seeing the meaningless loss of life.

Spike – "This is so depressing. All this slaughter and I missed it."

Angelus turned around, away from the large rune-covered stone box and frowned.

Angelus to Drusilla – "Why did you bring him?"

Drusilla, with plaintive eyes – "He needs to get out of the house more."

Angelus - "I guess you're right. Some sun would be good for him."

Spike, noticing the box – "And this is what we came back to Sunnydale for?"

Angelus, rolling his eyes – "This is just the packaging. Crowbar!"

One of the vampires tossed a crowbar carefully in Angel's direction. He effortlessly caught it in midair and then jammed it into the corner of the box, as one would to a wooden freight crate.

He levered the crowbar and the front panel fell forward, thudding heavily when it hit the ground.

Inside the box was a brutishly stocky stone statue of a demon with horns and a sword protruding out of its heart.

Drusilla went "Oooh."

Spike went "Oooh." too but for a different, more annoying reason.

Angelus – "I thought it would be bigger. Huh."

Spike – "Can't say I'm impressed. I already know a store where you can get garden gnomes with swords stuck through them. Didn't need to come to Sunnydale for this."

Angel – "Spike, have you been raiding vending machines again?"

Spike – "So?"

Angel – "It's just you're extra annoying when you're on sugar."

Spike chuckled and did a wheelie in his wheel chair,

Angel – "And I'm not going to pick you up again if you fall. So stop that."

Spike, as he balanced on both wheels – "I can pick my own bloody self up. So what's with the garden gnome?"

Angelus, quickly losing patience with the blonde vampire – "Obviously, it's not a garden gnome."

Spike, more interested in his balancing act than the statue – "So what's it do? And if you tell me it'll bestow you with powers enough to beat Buffy down, I'm going to puke. Give it up already. She's not coming back."

Angelus growled and kicked Spike in his wheel chair over.

Angel, still growling down at Spike – "This has nothing to do with Buffy."

Spike, acting like the attack was no big thing – "So..? What is it to do with?"

Angelus – "This statue is what remains of Acathla. When I pull the sword of his stone heart, I'll let loose death and destruction the world will have never seen before and it never will see anything like it again. You know why? Because it will be DEAD!"

Spike lay there in his fallen wheelchair with a silent frown while the rest of the vampires in the room cheered Angelus on and Drusilla clapped like a smitten schoolgirl.

O-O-O-O

Elsewhere, Larry was busy with the inside of his locker, pinning up pictures of girls he had never met.

He looked left and right guiltily, wary for anyone who might overlook the labor of love. After he was done with his locker, it would be a miniature Sistine chapel of pubescent lust.

Buffy, appearing behind him – "Nice rack."

Larry yelped and spun around to confront Buffy – "Geez, Buffy. Don't do that. My heart's pounding out of my chest."

Buffy, with a wicked smile – "I know. I can hear it."

Larry, forcing himself to calm down – "What do you want?"

Buffy - "Well, I'm, uh, kind of going through a phase."

Larry looked at her evenly, not knowing where this conversation was going.

Buffy, smiling somewhat evilly – "Hey, tell me. Have you ever been down in the basement before?"

Larry – "No. Not really."

Buffy – "Well, I have. Want me to show you around?"

O-O-O-O

It was half an hour later or so later when Giles found himself in the Sunnydale's museum of natural history, talking to police about the deaths of.. well, almost everyone.

Detective Stein – "You don't work here, do you?"

Giles – "No. I was called in by a Dr. Perrin. He mentioned that there was an ancient giant obelisk that he wanted some help on."

Detective Stein looked down on his pad and frowned.

Stein – "I'm afraid the poor doctor has moved on."

Giles, realizing this was no coincidence – "Oh, oh dear."

Stein – "My words exactly. This obelisk? That's like a big rock, isn't it?"

Giles – "More or less. I, ah.. is it still here?"

Stein thought about this and frowned. Then he turned around and addressed one of his fellow policemen.

Stein – "Hey, Gary. Have you seen a giant rock?"

Gary, the fellow policeman – "Where?"

Giles – "I believe it was still being restored. Not on display, as it were."

Both of the cops came up with naught.

Stein – "Sorry. Nothing rings a bell. What can you tell me about it?"

Giles – "Very little, I'm afraid. The curator working on it, Dr. Perrin, he didn't recognize the design. That's why he asked for my help, to

Stein – "Ri-ight. And you're just a librarian?"

Giles – "I used to curate for the British museum and have become something of an expert in obscure relics. At least, by Sunnydale standards."

Stein, skeptically – "You used to curate for the British museum and now you're here, being the librarian to the local high school?"

Giles – "It, it was the stress. I didn't handle it very well. I just needed a change of pace."

Stein – "I think I can understand that. So, hypothetically, what's the street value for obscure stolen obelisks?.. Obeli? Obelox?"

Giles – "I couldn't appraise something I haven't seen. Perhaps they had some notes I could look at."

Stein, handing his card to Giles and walking away – "We'll see what we can find. You're free to go. If I have anymore questions, I'll call."

Giles, catching up with the detective – "Mr. Stein. I should warn you that the obelisk might not be an obelisk at all. I was under the impression that it might be hollow, housing a priceless treasure inside. If this is true then it's imperative that we discover what is kept inside before it can leave California. As we speak, blackguards could be formulating plans to melt down an artifact of vital archaeological import."

Stein frowned – "Melt down? You mean it could be like a solid gold Buddha or something."

Giles, hesitating slightly at the absurdity of what he was about to say – "Quite likely, yes."

The chances of a solid gold Buddha being buried on the outskirts of Sunnydale in a giant cage of stone would be…

Giles stopped thinking about it.

Gary, the other policeman – "Now that I think about it. There was that room with all the dead guys in it. It had all these huge slabs of rock in the middle of the room. Maybe that was the outside of this Obelisk you're talking about."

Stein, thinking about promotion – "Alright then, Mr. Giles. We'll take you in to have a look around. I hope you have a strong stomach because we haven't loaded out all the bodies yet."

Giles, gulping for effect and trying to look stricken – "I'll try my best."

O-O-O-O

Continued in the next chapter.


	23. 8b Ménage a triage

O-O-O-O

When Giles drove back to the high school his back seat was packed high with charcoal scratchings taken from the remaining pieces of the obelisk. When he pulled into the school, he found an ambulance parked in the teacher's parking lot.

Giles got out in time to find Larry being taken away in a stretcher with a nitrous oxide mask on his face and Buffy tailing behind them, crying lightly as she did.

Giles immediately went over to Buffy and pulled her aside.

Giles – "Buffy. What happened?"

Buffy, sobbing – "I-I hurt him."

Giles, angry – "You bit him? Buffy, how could you be so stupid?"

Buffy, stricken – "I didn't bite him! I just hurt him by accident. I didn't mean this to happen."

Giles, frowning with disappointment – "Is he going to be okay?"

Buffy – "I think so. I don't think I hurt anything vital. It was mostly just bones."

Giles, wincing at the mention of bones – "Tell me, how did this happen?"

Buffy – "I .. we.."

Giles, sternly – "Buffy. Tell me."

Buffy, looking at the ground in shame – "I had sex with him."

Giles sighed and spoke slowly to her, without anger – "Buffy. I realize that you have- that you- oh, this is awkward. Buffy, perhaps it would be best if you kept your affairs platonic from now on. I'm sure we both want to avoid any other accidents like this, don't we?"

Buffy nodded obediently.

Giles – "Now I don't want you to take this as punishment. It's just if you can't control yourself then more people will just get hurt."

Buffy – "I know."

Giles – "On the way to the museum, I was thinking that perhaps there is some training methods we could use to help rein in your unwanted desires."

Buffy, looking at him with pain-filled eyes that were tinged with a little hope – "Really?"

Giles – "Yes."

The bell that signaled the end of the lunch break went off and Buffy looked up in frustration at it.

Giles – "But we will have to wait until after school. Now go off to class and please, be careful from now on."

Buffy moved off towards her next class with a heavy head.

There was no way she could tell Giles what really happened. She couldn't tell anyone, not even Willow.

What she couldn't tell anyone was that when she crushed Larry's wrists in the palm of her tiny hands, she liked it.

She liked it so much that it scared her.

O-O-O-O

Scene – The foyer of an old rundown but still very atmospheric mansion.

Angelus was leaning against a wall, reading from a book while some other vampires were holding down a bound and gagged man in the middle of the room. In front of them stood Acathla, the swallower of worlds.

One of the vampires – "Uh, sir. What's the hold up?"

Angel – "I just want to make sure I've got my lines right. Besides, I want Dru to be here for this."

He went back to reading until Drusilla came into the room, wheeling Spike in front of her.

Spike, in disappointment – "You're going to do this thing now?"

Angelus looked over at him in annoyance – "I was thinking about it."

Spike – "Really? Huh. Not what I thought you were going to do."

Angelus raised an eyebrow – "Really? And what, pray tell, would you have of me?"

Spike, shrugging in his chair – "It's just there are a few loose ends. That's all."

Angelus – "Loose ends?"

Spike – "That's right. What about Buffy? She put me in wheelchair. And I bet you want some closure too."

Angelus sighed – "Spike. I'm going to destroy the world. Buffy is in the world. Closure."

Spike – "Pff! Whatever."

Angelus, tossing the book aside – "Hey, you know who else is in the world? You are! So this will be killing two birds with one stone."

Angelus stepped forward towards the bound human on his knees and the vampire minions moved away to watch from the sidelines.

Angelus, speaking out to Acathla – "I will drink. The blood will wash inside me, over me and I will be cleansed. I will be worthy to free Acathla. Bear witness as I ascend. As I become."

He grabbed the man by the hair and Angel's game face flashed on. He bit deep into the man's and chewed a gory wound out of their neck. Once he released the man from his bite, Angel wiped his hand over the wound to cover his palm in blood. Then he dropped the man who was now lifeless, if not completely dead already.

Angelus – "Everything I am. Everything I have become, it has led me to here, to now, to this."

Angelus grabbed the handle of the sword and pulled at it with his bloodied hand. As he did, light shone out of where the sword met stone, bathing the room in glaring starlight.

Then a red puff of flame burst out of the statue and threw Angelus across the floor.

Spike, laughing – "Oh dearie me. King Arthur you're not."

Angelus, growling as he got back up – "This doesn't make any sense. I did everything right. Unless the sacrifice wasn't pure. But he was. I tasted him."

Drusilla, moaning in disappointment – "But our party. I want my party."

Angelus – "I must have missed something. But what? The incantations? All I know is it's not me. I'm the most worthy subject there ever was."

Spike – "As long as you forget that whole whiny bitch with a soul period."

Drusilla, starting to sob – "But what are we going to do?"

Angel roared and threw a large piece of pottery against the wall.

Angel, with an evil grin – "We will have our party, Dru. Even if we have to kill everyone in this stinking town to do it."

Spike – "Oh, now that's an idea I can get behind."

Angelus, grimacing – "Shut up, Spike."

Angel, turning to the minions with a smile – "Now all I need is a volunteer."

O-O-O-O

Giles was inside his office in the library, looking over the charcoal impressions from the obelisk.

Then suddenly he looked over his little notepad full of notes. He flicked a few pages back and then looked back at the impressions and gasped.

Giles, realizing what was inside the obelisk – "Oh no. Not that. But who would?.. Angelus? It must be."

Then Giles sprung into action and pulled his phone to the front of the desk and dialed in an out of town number.

As the phone rang, he reached down into his desk and pulled out a certain yellow disk from a drawer.

Giles, looking at the disk grimly – "I think it's time, Jenny."

Voice on the phone – "Pardon me?"

O-O-O-O

Elsewhere, Buffy was in a quiet classroom that was in the middle of practicing exam tests. The only sounds the average human could hear were pencils scratching across paper. But to Buffy, the room was alive with the sounds of biology. She heard beating hearts, almost hypnotic breathing and blood sloshing around in very distracting ways.

Buffy, trying to focus, literally trying to focus her eyes on the exam paper – "You can do this. It's just an exam. It's not even a real exam."

The girl next to her looked over briefly. Buffy looked back before returning to the papers in front of her on the desk.

Then a goth girl in a black death shroud walked into the room. No one really noticed her as they were concentrating on the tests in front of them.

She pulled back the shroud to reveal her face to the somewhat indirect sunlight in the room.

Goth girl – "Tonight! Sundown. At the cemetery."

Everyone looked up, including the teacher.

Teacher – "Excuse me. But I think you've got the wrong class."

Goth girl, now with smoke reeling off her – "You will go back to your Sire tonight or more will die."

Flames now sparked to life on the goth at various points and the students in the room screamed.

Goth vampire, her last words – "The circle will be closed. Tonight!"

With that said, the flames consumed her and she vanished in a flash and a puff of smoke.

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Willow, Cordelia and Xander all walked into the library at the same time to find Giles talking with Kendra.

Buffy's game face flashed on instantly at the sign of the other Slayer and she growled – "What is SHE doing here?"

Giles – "I asked her here."

Buffy, demanding an explanation – "Why?"

Giles, calmly – "Because we could do with her help."

Buffy, growling ferally at the other Slayer – "No, we don't."

Giles, sternly – "Buffy! You will not growl at people. It's uncivilized. And turn that off before someone sees you."

Buffy grit her teeth and held her anger in. She fumed quietly and her game face slowly slipped away. Even with her vampire side not showing, Buffy still held a pissed off look on her face.

Giles – "That is somewhat better."

Buffy – "This had better be good, Giles."

Giles – "Oh, it is. Or rather, it's not. The tomb of Acathla was being studied at the museum. Before I could get to it, vampires attacked the museum and stole Acathla from the tomb. No doubt they're going to unleash its power. Power enough to suck the world into hell. We need all the help we can muster to retrieve it before that happens."

Willow – "This can't be a coincidence. We just got a message. A vampire came into our classroom and burnt herself alive. Telling Buffy to meet Angel in the cemetery. I'm not sure which cemetery."

Buffy, still fuming a little – "I am."

Giles, raising an eyebrow – "They burnt themselves alive on purpose?"

Xander – "A regular flame-o-gram. Wish I had someone who would send me those."

Giles – "If Angelus has Acathla then it will only be a matter of time before he figures out how to use it. We can't allow that to happen."

Buffy – "Then tonight, I'll kill him."

Kendra – "I don't think so."

Buffy – "Hey! I didn't ask you!"

Kendra, to Giles – "I think Buffy would be even more incapable of defeating her Sire in her lovesick condition."

Buffy, to Kendra – "I'm not lovesick. I'm hormonal. And Giles! How does she know about this!"

Kendra – "It was in a bulletin posted this morning."

Buffy blinked at her, trying to figure out if she was lying.

Xander – "Maybe Angel just wants to off Buffy before he destroys the world. Or maybe he wants one last fling. Who knows with that guy?"

Giles – "His motives are irrelevant. Oh, and Willow. Could you please look at this disk immediately? I believe it's from Jenny and from circumstances in which I came across it, it might be important."

Willow, taking the disk – "Of course, I'll just set up."

Willow scooted past the taller Slayer and started setting up her laptop on the table behind them.

Xander – "Hey, um, how do we know that we're not getting sucked into hell right now?"

Cordelia, snorting – "Because we're not."

Xander – "But how could you tell? Maybe it's a very slow process."

Buffy – "Yeah. Like home-ec."

Giles looked over to Willow, who had already set up her computer in record time. Then he looked at the two Slayers.

Giles – "You two, pretend to be nice. We'll need to work together on this."

Kendra – "You don't have to worry about me. But Buffy, I'm not so sure about."

Buffy – "If you want to say something, just say it."

Kendra – "Very well. I don't trust you. You're still under the influence of a master vampire. Not Angelus but Spike, who is just as evil."

Buffy gasped – "Oh my god, Giles! You tell the council about everything I do?"

Giles ignored her and watched Willow's screen over her shoulder.

Buffy, turning to Kendra – "You don't have to worry about that. See, I don't love Spike. That's what's different. I don't give a damn what he tells me to do."

Kendra – "But you didn't kill him. Did you?"

Buffy, frowning a little – "Umm, ahh, well no. I was kind of disorientated when I did the whole sire-swapping thing .Besides, he's harmless. He's stuck in a wheelchair."

Willow, gasping and hyperventilating – "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Ms. Calendar, I love you! You always back up. Hey Guys. Guys! Look!"

The others turned to where she was pointing at the screen in front of her.

Willow, really excited as she turned her laptop towards them – "It's a restoration spell. THE restoration spell. The one for Angel. For his soul. That spell! It's deciphered and everything."

Giles looked at the screen much more calmly – "Willow. I'm not sure if we can cast this. This ritual requires considerable knowledge of the dark arts. More than I can claim to have."

Willow – "Well. I can do it."

Giles, frowning with concern – "Willow, that's not a good idea."

Willow – "But you remember vampire Xander? He said I'm the one who does this stuff."

Giles, still frowning – "And he also identified you as the Tempest, someone who really shouldn't be playing with the dark arts. What use is a prophecy if we just ignore it when it pleases us?"

Buffy – "Willow. Do you really think you can do this?"

Willow nodded, "I-I might need some time to prepare and get some of the ingredients but yeah. I really think I can."

Xander – "I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm finding myself siding with my evil twin's warning. This doesn't sound safe. I don't want you putting yourself in any danger, Willow."

Kendra – "If you want my advice –"

Buffy, interrupting her – "We don't."

Kendra, continuing with what she was about to say – "Restoring Angel's soul would is a stupid idea. The other vampires around him would notice magic like this. They would rise up and destroy him before he would be able to get free."

Cordelia – "That's a very good point. If this spell is risky then it's no use doing it if we don't get anything out of it."

Willow – "Oh! But this is perfect. If we do the spell tonight, when Buffy goes to meet him in the graveyard then the only person around Angel will by Buffy. She'll be able to defend him against any of the other vampires."

Buffy, resolutely – "Then we do it tonight."

Giles, sighing – "There is one problem with this scenario."

Willow – "No there isn't."

Giles – "Yes. There is. Buffy, you must have noticed that the council has been performing a large amount of tests on you."

Buffy, nodding – "Every month and sometimes more. So?"

Giles – "But you weren't privy to the nature of these tests. You see, there is something wrong with you."

Buffy folded her arms and gave a look of being unimpressed.

Giles – "Perhaps not the best wording I admit but it's true. Buffy, when Angel's curse was broken and he turned you, you.. you somehow absorbed his curse."

Buffy now frowning – "Huh?"

Giles – "To be more precise, you absorbed his soul."

The younger scoobies were all floored at this.

Cordelia – "So you mean she actually has a soul?"

Willow – "And it's Angel's?"

Xander – "And I had sex with her! Oh my god! I had sex with Angel! Buffy, why didn't you tell me!"

Giles – "No. It's nothing like that."

Xander – "Tonight, I've got a date with some bleach and a brillo pad. I'm going to clean every inch of skin I've got."

Giles – "She's not possessed by Angel's soul. It's lodged inside her as an arrow would be. The council has been trying to find some way to extract it without killing her. I'm afraid that for all our amassings and expertise, we just don't have any method of doing just that."

Buffy – "What are you trying to say?"

Giles – "If we restore Angel's soul, you will die."

Buffy, turning around – "No. You're lying!"

Giles approached her and turned her around towards him.

Giles, looking her in the eyes – "I'm not. You know that I'm not."

Buffy looked into his sad green eyes and couldn't see even a hint of a lie.

Buffy – "Just one question. Would I die instantly?"

Giles – "No. No, I suspect it will be agonizing for while and then you'll just fade away, unable to hold on."

Buffy, smiling slightly – "Good. At least I'll get to say goodbye to the real Angel. That would be nice. Do it."

Giles, taken aback – "Do what?"

Buffy, to Willow – "Do the spell."

Willow, confused – "Uh, Buffy. You heard what Giles said. If that's true then doing the spell will kill you."

Buffy – "And so I'll die. Do the spell."

Xander – "Whoa, hold on. Buffy, you're talking about suicide here. Maybe right now isn't the best time for life changing decisions, what with you being in heat and all?"

Buffy, trying to sound resolute – "I've made my decision. I-I want Angel back to how he was."

Giles – "Well, we won't have anything of it. You can't be allowed to throw your life away like this."

Buffy slammed Giles against the wall and growled – "I can kill myself however I want!"

Giles, trying to stay calming – "But Buffy. What about the prophecy? You're to usher in a new golden age. That's worth more than Angel. Even he would understand that."

Buffy – "How do you know that this isn't what I'm prophesized to do? Maybe bringing Angel back makes the world a better place. Think about it. Who could help your council more? Buffy, a seventeen year old cheerleader or Angel, the vampire with a soul and two hundred years experience. If you want the world to change it's got to start with someone caring about it."

Buffy tossed Giles aside and growled at him when he looked up at her from the floor.

Buffy – "And I don't, Giles. I just don't care anymore. Do the spell!"

She gave one last growl and left the room in silence.

Xander snorted – "Yeah right. Like we're going to do the spell."

Giles, dusting himself off as he stood back up – "Actually, we are."

Xander gave him a confused look – "Huh? You can't be serious."

Giles – "Deadly. Tonight, no matter how much I hate it, we are going to bring Angelus back his soul."

Xander – "But that's ridiculous. Why would we do that?"

Giles, looking Xander in the eye – "Because it's what Buffy would have wanted. The real Buffy."

Xander held the gaze for a few seconds then gave up in defeat.

O-O-O-O

Buffy and Joyce were in their lounge room, watching one of Joyce's favorite soap operas. Normally Buffy wouldn't even consider joining in on such an activity but since she was planning on dying in a few hours, she decided to get in as much mom-time as possible.

Buffy – "Mom."

Joyce – "Yes, Buffy?"

Buffy – "You know I love you, right?"

Joyce – "Is everything okay?"

Buffy, a little more cheerfully – "Yeah. I just wanted to you to know."

Joyce – "Oh. Well, I love you too."

Buffy – "And I'm sorry for all the trouble that I got into before. I promise that from now on, I'll try harder."

Joyce, smiling – "That's nice. Umm, you're not getting any more pocket money."

Buffy, snorting into a silly laugh – "Oh. Darn. You found me out."

Joyce, laughing a little too – "I tried the same thing when I was your age."

There was a knock at the door and Buffy got up to answer it with – "I'll get it."

The person on the other side made her frown.

Buffy – "What are you doing here?"

Kendra – "I wanted to talk."

Joyce – "Who is it?"

Buffy, calling back – "Umm, just a friend from school. I'm taking her up into my room. Okay?"

Joyce – "Okay. Will they be staying for dinner?"

Buffy considered this – "No. Definitely not."

Buffy opened the door wider and Kendra walked in.

Buffy, to Kendra as she closed the door – "Upstairs."

Kendra went up the stairs and Buffy followed her then directed her into her room.

Buffy, closing the bedroom door behind her – "So what did you want to talk about?"

Kendra – "I don't think you should go through with this."

Buffy, raising an eyebrow – "Why not? I thought you of all people would want me dead."

Kendra – "I .. I have changed my mind about you."

Buffy, sitting down on the bed – "Really? Why?"

Kendra, sitting down on the bed next to her – "Because.."

Buffy, smirking – "Come on. You can tell me."

Kendra – "When I first met you, when you were human, I saw that you had friends. That's not correct for the Slayer. You had a vampire for a boyfriend. Everything about you was wrong."

Buffy, chuckling – "I bet you say that to all the other Slayers."

Kendra, smiling a little herself – "Everything about you is still wrong but I found myself wanting the things you have. I tried to push it out of my mind. At first, it was easy. But recently, it's all I think about. I was taught that these things distract from my calling but I wonder what it would be like."

Buffy – "Who knows, maybe that's all I had to do to fulfill my prophecy. Have some fun."

Kendra – "Nothing I can say will change your mind?"

Buffy – "No. Sorry."

Kendra, on the verge of crying but resisting – "I will miss you then."

Buffy placed her hand on Kendra's and held it gently – "And besides everything that's happened, I'll miss you too."

For a long awkward moment, neither of them said anything.

Buffy – "Do you wanna make out?"

Kendra blinked in surprise and stared at Buffy.

Buffy, jittery – "Umm. Sorry. I don't know why I asked that. Hormones I guess."

Kendra – "I understand why. Lesbians are quite common among the Slayers."

Buffy blinked at her in surprise – "Really?"

Kendra, nodding – "Those of us who are trained from birth aren't allowed to talk with boys. So some of us find comfort in other girls."

Buffy – "What do the watchers think about this?"

Kendra – "I don't know. I've never heard them say anyting about it."

Buffy, smiling widely – "And you find comfort in other girls?"

Kendra, very seriously – "No."

Buffy, pouting – "So, no kissing?"

Kendra shook her head.

Buffy – "How about a hug?"

Kendra gave Buffy a stern look but gave in – "Okay. But just this once."

They both leant over and hugged each other. Buffy purred freely and found comfort in the warm, strong embrace of the other Slayer. Just this once, she let her hands roam without restraint.

Kendra gasped as Buffy rolled over and pinned Kendra on the bed under her – "B-Buffy. What are you doing?"

Buffy, trying to sound oblivious – "What? People don't hug like this where you come from?"

Buffy nuzzled into Kendra's neck and suckled gently on the jugular vein, wishing that it would be okay just to bite straight into it.

Kendra, laughing out loud – "Arr, that tickles. You're so cold. Stop that."

Buffy made a disappointed whine and hugged Kendra tighter, not wanting to let go.

Kendra, pushing Buffy's head away from her neck – "Buffy, this is silly."

Buffy, purring as she rested her head on Kendra's chest – "Can you just hold me for a while? I just want to be held."

Kendra rolled her eyes and sighed.

Kendra – "Okay. Just for a while."

O-O-O-O

Angel woke up in time to watch the sun die under the horizon to make way for another night.

Drusilla came up to his side, snuggled against him and immediately started playing with the buttons of his shirt.

Angelus batted away her hands, making her whimper.

Angel – "Not before the big game. Tell me, how are the troops?"

Drusilla – "Ready and waiting."

Angel – "Good. Because there's a lot riding on this."

Drusilla giggled and Angel groaned.

Angel – "Small minds."

O-O-O-O

Back at the library, Xander was furious they were still going through with Buffy's plan.

Xander - "She's flirting with disaster. No, not flirting. She's in bed with it and is playing Barry Manilow in the background."

Buffy – "Xander. You're not going to stop this."

Xander – "Have you thought this through at all? Who's going to be the Slayer when you're gone?"

Kendra frowned and Xander looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

Xander – "Okay. Maybe Slayer is the wrong word. Who's going to be Buffy? Who's going to protect us from the vampire and demons of Sunnydale? Because Kendra, you're great and everything but the council moves you all over the world. You don't really live here."

Buffy – "Xander, duh! Angel will help out."

Xander's mouth gaped open and a few of the other Scoobies looked at her sceptically.

Xander – "Angel?"

Buffy – "Yeah. Angel. What's so strange about that?"

Giles – "Buffy, Angel couldn't begin to replace you."

Buffy – "What do you mean?"

Kendra – "He's not that good at fighting."

Xander – "Actually, I think Giles means that he killed Jenny. He's tried to kill all of us. You think we can just forgive and forget and work together like nothing's happened."

Buffy – "Yes. That's what I'm implying you do."

Xander – "This isn't some after school special, Buffy. To real people, having your friends killed means something. And what's stopping him from losing his soul again the next time a piece of skirt comes along."

Buffy – "Just think about what you're saying. Which would he rather have? His soul or, as you so artfully put it, a piece of skirt?"

Willow – "Obviously he would keep his soul. But Buffy, I don't want to do this."

Buffy walked over to Willow and rested her forehead against the other girl's, her hands in her hair.

Buffy – "I know you don't, Willow. I can't tell you how much you've meant to me these past months. Sometimes, you've been the only thing keeping me sane. But we have to do this. You have to do this for me. You promise you will, right?"

Willow, now crying – "But I don't think I can."

Buffy – "But I know you can. I believe in you. You don't see how great you really are. You don't see how much energy you have. But I do. I've seen it running through your veins like liquid fire. It burns so brightly, you make my nights seem like day."

Buffy took the next step and leant in, kissing Willow on the mouth, hooking an arm around her waist in a V to hold her close as she did.

Willow's eyes boggled wide and a small scream was muffled by the union of their mouths.

The others in the room didn't quite know what to say.

Buffy ignored them, unashamedly smooching Willow. Eventually, Willow started hitting Buffy on the back until she let go. Willow fell on the floor, deeply pink and gasping for air. The kiss didn't leave her much room for breathing.

Buffy, chuckling a little – "Sorry. Nerves."

Willow, panting as she got up – "Buffy, I can't believe you did that!"

Buffy just grinned widely.

Willow, chuckling a little too – "Okay. Maybe I can. But let's not tell Oz about this, okay?"

Giles – "I know my lips are sealed."

Buffy hefted up a backpack from the floor and placed it on the table.

Buffy – "Uh, I, uh, Giles? This is all my Slayer stuff from home. Stakes, knives, holy water, my diaries and stuff. I didn't want my Mom to find it after I'm gone."

Giles – "I see."

Buffy – "But could you not read my diaries? I mean.. No, actually, read them. Particularly the parts after I get turned. You might like some parts. But don't read them until I'm dead, okay? Because if I come back and you've read it all, whoa, that would be so awkward."

Buffy looked down at the backpack and the room stayed silent as she did.

This backpack held the last of Buffy's life. The clothes and her bedroom weren't really hers anymore. They were leftovers from a previous life, a life of blissful ignorance which she didn't belong to anymore. Her world had become one of stakes and diaries and the endless need to feed. It seemed that now her entire world fitted into one small bag.

O-O-O-O

Some time later.

Buffy found herself wandering through a cemetery, looking for her dead lover and without wearing the blue glasses she had been wearing almost non stop for a few months.

Angelus – "Hey traitor."

Buffy turned around casually and studied at him, leaning against a mausoleum and being the embodiment of carefree.

Buffy chuckled at his greeting – "I'm the traitor? Please. I don't remember killing you in bed."

Angelus, smirking – "Oh, you did that at least a few times. Just little deaths though."

Buffy sat down on a handy gravestone and asked – "So how ya been?"

Angelus – "So so. And what is that lovely scent? Someone's been having fun."

Buffy with a wicked smile – "Yeah, that's Kendra you smell on me. Eau de cappuccino, definitely something I don't mind wearing."

Angel chuckled as he recognized Kendra's scent – "Oh, so it is! How did you get her scent all over you like that?"

Buffy, playfully spreading her legs wider – "You really want to know? Or would you rather I showed you?"

Angelus tilted his head curiously – "I thought this would go differently. I wasn't even sure you'd come at all."

Buffy – "What? And miss my favourite vampire? Angel, you know me better than that."

Angel frowned and looked Buffy over from where he stood, noticing that Buffy didn't even bring a stake. He looked around the graveyard and tried a little more small talk.

Angel – "What is it with hellmouths and mist? This is supposed to be California and yet, look at that mist."

Buffy – "I missed you."

Angel – "Really?"

Buffy, a little sadly – "Yeah. I missed you a lot, Angel. You know I love you, right?"

Angel – "What are you playing at, girl?"

Buffy – "Come on, Angel. I know you've got that Acathla demon. I know if I kill you, some other vampire will just use it instead. So the only thing I can think of is giving you some reason not to kill yourself along with everyone else. Guess what I came up with."

Angel looked Buffy up and down as she teased him with her best come-hither look.

Angel, smirking arrogantly as he approached – "You'll be my whore?"

Buffy – "I always was."

Angel grabbed her by the arms and she didn't struggle. Instead she looked back at him with intense, crazy eyes like a vampire about to pounce on an unsuspecting victim.

Buffy, eagerly – "Whatever you want. I'll do it."

Angel stared at her in fascination, gently stroking her face as she eased into his hands. He placed his thumb on her mouth and she let it slip in to suckle gently on it.

Angel growled and yanked Buffy off the gravestone, slamming her back on the ground and forcing her onto her knees.

He trapped her head between his hands, against the cold stone of the gravestone behind her and the front of his pants right in front of her face.

She looked up at him with sparkling emerald eyes and all he saw was love.

Buffy – "All I ever wanted was you."

Angelus, unable to stop himself smiling – "Uh, Buffy, right now your mouth should be doing something else besides talking. Or do I have to give you lessons on how to be a whore?"

Zzzip.

O-O-O-O

Back at the library, the rite of restoration was apparently going along swimmingly.

Willow was sitting cross legged on the ground with the Orb of Thesulah held in front of her, inside a small circle of stones. Kendra and Xander stood back and watched while Giles and Cordelia helped out in the ritual with various other tasks.

Willow – "Spirits of the never dead, of the never born, I call out to thee. I summon you from the in between places, from what should not be, from the shadows where there is no darkness to hide the paths of pain."

Cordelia waved some joss sticks through the air, as if trying to flick ash onto Willow.

Willow – "We call upon you to return one of our numbers. We call upon the agonies of his humanity. We call for the gift your kin have no need for. Return it to the vessel from whence it came."

O-O-O-O

Back at the cemetery.

Buffy and Angel were camped out in a mausoleum, lying on a sarcophagus in the middle of the room. Right now, they were taking a small rest from their love making. For the most part, both of them still had their clothes on.

Buffy nestled in the protective, possessive embrace of Angelus.

Angelus – "You've gotten better."

Buffy – "And I'd forgotten how good you were."

Their hands interlaced and their matching claddagh rings rubbed together. Buffy hadn't realised Angelus still wore it.

Buffy – "Angel. You still love me, don't you?"

Angel, dismissively – "What do you think?"

Buffy – "I.. I still love you. You know that, right?"

Angel, with a small playful smile – "Yeah. I know that."

Buffy stared Angelus in the eyes and wasn't entirely sure what she saw.

Then a sharp, devastating pain shot through her chest. She pushed Angelus off her and arched in pain. She looked down and didn't see a stake or anything that could have caused that sort of pain.

She looked over at Angelus and he seemed to be going through something similar.

Angelus – "Bitch! Fucking Curse! Arrgh!"

They must have finally cast the spell. Giles was right, this hurt like a bitch.

It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of her rib cage and pull all the painful parts out with it.

Then as quickly as the pain started, it ended and both of them slumped back down.

Pain still echoed through her and she coughed up some blood. Putting a weak hand up to her face, she found her face to be covered with blood. It was leaking out of her nose and her eyes were fuzzy with redness.

Buffy, weakly – "Angel?"

Angel still in shock from his transformation – "Buffy?"

Buffy – "I love you."

Angel stared at Buffy – "Buffy. What happened to you?"

Buffy coughed up some more blood that was pooling in the back of her throat before replying.

Buffy – "The spell. For the spell to work, I have to die. I'm sorry."

Angel's mouth gaped open – "No. No, you're not going to die. You'll be okay."

Buffy – "Is it really you?"

Angel – "Yeah, Buffy. It's me."

Buffy – "I missed you."

Angel leant over and kissed her, tasting the blood in mouth and not holding himself back from spreading her legs and easing his body against her.

Buffy groaned into his mouth as he mounted her.

Buffy, breaking off his hungry kiss - "Angel. We can't do that. You know what will happen if we have sex."

Angel held her tight and thrust into her deeply, ignoring her warning.

Buffy let out a weak cry, not having the strength to push him away.

Angel thrust into her again, making her whimper in pain. She was dying here and what was he doing?

Angel whispered into her ear - "The spell didn't work and I bet Drusilla's feeding on your friends right this very instant."

Buffy gasped and before she could react, Angel bit down into her neck, locking him in place over her.

Buffy, pleading – "N-no. Stop. St-stop."

She only had one hand free, the other being held down by Angelus. With that one hand she tried to pull Angelus off but she was too weak to find any leverage. So she had no choice but to lie there and take whatever Angelus wanted to do to her. It seemed that he just wanted to kill her once and for all.

The light dimmed from her eyes and her head lolled to the side as the blood loss slowly took her over. The world of Angelus furiously raping her faded away to a distant forgettable dream as she slipped under.

Buffy, unable for more than a last whisper – "I love you."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	24. 8c Traffic jelly

O-O-O-O

Angel still had Buffy pinned underneath him in an unholy sexual union, his fangs deep into her neck. He grunted and thrust into her for one last time, finally sated.

After a few seconds his jaws clicked upon and he pulled back to look down at Buffy. She was little more than a limp rag-doll under him as she looked up at him with what could have been dead bloodshot eyes.

He brushed some hair away from her face and looked down at her thoughtfully. Then he bit into his own wrist and held it above her mouth.

Instantly, she came alive and grabbed his wrist as she tried to pull it closer to her mouth. Angel pulled back, keeping his blood away from her dry thirsty mouth.

Buffy, raspily – "Please."

Angelus – "Not yet. Not until you know what this means."

Buffy, with pain in her eyes – "I need it."

Angelus – "You take this and you're mine."

Buffy, pleading with her eyes – "I'm yours."

Angelus – "No. You're not. You're the Slayer. You drink my blood and I expect you to be mine entirely. No more slaying. No more playing good guy. You'll be a killer, just like me."

Buffy, hungrily trying to lift her head up to reach Angel's wrist – "Can't we talk about this afterwards?"

Angelus pushed her down, - "No! You take my blood and do what I say or I kill you right now. Do you understand?"

Buffy nodded and Angelus slowly lowered his wrist to her waiting lips.

Angelus – "And after this, I'm going to feed you your friends one at a time. Would you like that?"

A strange clarity came over Buffy and she looked away from his wrist and up into his eyes. Angelus looked down at her and then rolled off the sarcophagus they were lying on as Buffy twisted his wrist and threw him off.

Angelus got up growling while Buffy slid gracefully off the sarcophagus onto her feet. He glared at her, seeing none of the weakness he had seen just seconds earlier.

Then he let his game face fade away and he laughed.

Angelus – "I guess I came on a little strong bringing up your friends like that."

Buffy – "It was a bit of a mood killer."

Angelus, considering his options – "I'm going to run away now. You could chase me but what about your friends in the library? Most of them would be Scooby snacks by now but if you run, you might be able to save some. One, maybe two. Maybe none."

Buffy, growling – "You'd better run then."

Angelus gave her one last smirk then turned away and ran out of the mausoleum.

A second after he left Buffy slumped down on her knees, letting out a pained sob as she held her neck where she had been bitten.

She stayed like that for a while, sobbing and unable to move. Then she remembered her friends and forced herself onto her feet.

It was painful but she walked forward. With new found determination, she forced herself into a run up the stairs and ignored the sickly feeling she felt deep inside her gut.

O-O-O-O

Buffy ran across the front lawn of the school, barging through the front doors and towards the library.

She didn't know what she was running on but it wasn't blood anymore. It felt more like crushed glass seeping its way through her veins.

She rounded a corner towards the library and her hunger struck her again as the smells of battle wafted towards her in warm, delicious waves. As she ran through the doors into the library, she found it full of destruction. In the middle of the room lied Kendra in a pool of her own blood. After that, nothing else was important.

Buffy rushed over to the other Slayer and held her up to elevate the cut on her neck. But it was too late. She was already dead as her cold body lacked a heart beat.

Buffy hugged the dead Slayer and started sobbing anew, nuzzling down towards her neck. Then Buffy stopped and her eyes shot open, realizing that she just about to bite down into the girl's neck.

She thought about this for a second.

Well, she IS already dead and I'm REALLY hungry. What would it hurt?

So she let herself go and chomped down into soft, nubile flesh of the dead Slayer. She drank deep and the rich blood rushed down her throat. She could feel it filling her with strength and power, healing her and making her whole again.

Lights played across Buffy's eyes as the hunger she felt turned into ecstatic relief.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

A vicious burning sensation hit Buffy and she shied back from it, dragging Kendra along with her. She looked up to find Xander standing over her with a cross and a purple bruise around his cheek.

When he saw it was Buffy, he stopped and stared. Seeing that Buffy was still draining Kendra, he stood back in horror.

Xander – "Oh god. Buffy? What have you done?"

Buffy's eyes shot wide and she let Kendra go.

Buffy, with blood still around her mouth – "Now hold on, it's not what you think."

Another bonfire of pain neared her and Buffy shied away from it to find Cordelia standing there at the end of her tether – "We trusted you!"

Buffy, trying to collect her thoughts – "Guys."

Xander picked up a crossbow from the ground and pointed it towards Buffy. When she saw the look in his eyes, she turned and ran out of the room. As she did, a bolt whistled past her ear and imbedded itself in the wall.

O-O-O-O

Outside, Buffy stumbled against the gates into the school.

She was so exhausted that she couldn't think straight. She rested her head against the gate and did a mental reconstruction of what just happened.

Angel bit her, draining her while he raped her. That wasn't so nice.

She pushed him off and he told her about her friends dying.

She ran to the school and found Kendra dead in the library. She was starving and drained Kendra, since she didn't need blood anymore.

Buffy whimpered and gritted her teeth in pain and need – "Kendra."

Kendra was gone. That sweet, succulent girl was gone and she barely got to taste her at all. Kendra couldn't have had more than five pints left by the time Buffy found her. Oh but that blood, it was like nothing she had ever tasted. She could still feel it boiling inside her as if trying to fight its way out.

And then Xander and Cordelia attacked her? Why?

It must have been the shock from seeing her draining Kendra. Humans are funny that way.

If she gave them some time to cool off, they'll probably see reason. They might even let her finish Kendra off if she asked nicely.

Then Buffy heard a quickly approaching growl and turned towards it in time to see a flash of twin headlights.

A sports car sparked against the school gates as they skidded against them. Buffy tried to dodge but somehow got hit square on and lay crumbled on the hood of the car.

She looked up and found the car to be occupied by Xander in the passenger seat and Cordelia driving.

Xander barked out something which Buffy couldn't hear properly and the car sped back in reverse. Buffy slipped off the hood and slumped down into the concrete of the schools driveway.

She groaned and looked up to find the headlights flashing towards her again. She wasn't ready to even try dodging them this time and the car drove completely over her at speed.

After it had run over her, she propped herself onto her elbows and the car backed up, the back bumper hitting her head and the tires tore over her gut.

Moaning and in pain, Buffy called out pitifully – "Stop. I didn't do anything."

The car had stopped but Buffy saw Xander holding a crossbow out his window, pointing in her direction.

Then a new figure came out of nowhere and plucked the crossbow out of Xander's hands, throwing it aside onto the grass.

The new comer was none other than Spike.

Spike – "I really should say something terribly witty right about now."

But Spike didn't. Instead, he just bashed Xander in the face with a violently fast backhand that knocked him out instantly.

With wide eyes, Cordelia gunned the accelerator and the car sped off, out the gate and only just missing Buffy as it sped past.

Spike laughed as he spotted Buffy wounded on the pavement – "Actually, I think that was witty. What do you think?"

Buffy tried to force herself back onto her feet but she just didn't have the strength. Spike picked her up, helping her back onto the feet and leant her against the gate. He let her go and she slipped over so he held her up and chuckled.

Spike, noticing the blood staining her mouth – "Oh Buffy. So that's why your friends had it out for you. Tell me, who was it? Who did you eat?"

A familiar, unwanted compulsion rolled up from her stomach, up into her spine and into her mouth. She tried to hold it in but didn't have the strength.

Buffy, letting go – "Kendra."

Spike half chuckled and half purred – "The other Slayer? Oh boy. Wish I had seen that. Come on, gimme a taste."

Spike held her up and held her head still as he leant forward and gently licked the blood off her bottom lip. Buffy huffed out a few sobs as her body ignored her and perhaps even enjoyed her injuries as it started thinking dirty, sticky thoughts about the vampire in front of her. She had been bound in his blood and his presence was overpowering her.

Spike smirked at Buffy, amused as undiluted lust rolled off her – "You're just gagging for it, aren't you?"

Then Buffy kneed him in the groin and he stumbled back in pain, letting her fall to the ground again.

Spike, limping a little – "Right. Stepped out of bounds a bit there."

Buffy, from the ground – "Stay away from me."

Spike – "That's not what you said last time we met. In fact, I remember you getting on very familiar terms with me."

Buffy – "I was only after your blood. It was just physical."

Spike – "Oh, Slayer. So hurtful. But you're mine now so you'll do what I say."

Buffy groaned a little and forced herself onto her feet – "I can still fight you."

Spike let out a laugh – "Is that what you call that? You can hardly stand. But don't exert yourself. I'm not here to kill you."

Buffy – "I won't be your slave."

Spike – "And although that sounds like fun, I'm not here for that either. See, I need your help. We're going to kill Angel."

Buffy looked at him oddly – "Yeah right."

Spike, a little angry she didn't believe him – "Yes, right!"

Buffy – "How stupid do you think I am? You're on his side."

Spike – "The hell I am! Not anymore. I'm sick and tired of that guy in charge. I don't know why he wants us all to burn in the flames of Acathla's hell either. I liked it better when it was just me and Dru. I want it back the way it was."

Buffy, frowning – "With Drusilla in charge?"

Spike – "Well, uh, yeah. Pretty much."

Buffy – "You know, I'm gonna have to kill Drusilla cos she'll try to use Acathla too."

Spike snorted – "No she won't. I'll take her out to the country, give her a pony ride and she'll forget all about it. I love my Dru but she's got a head like a sieve. Besides, you're in no position to kill anyone."

He picked her up in his arms, surprising her.

Buffy, giving a token struggle – "Hey. Put me down."

Spike – "Sure. When you can walk on your own two feet."

Buffy stopped struggling and then despite herself, fell asleep in her enemy's arms.

O-O-O-O

She awoke as Spike shook her awake.

Spike – "Hey, wake up. I got you some grub."

Buffy grimaced sleepily – "What do I want with a grub?"

As she opened her eyes, she saw Spike kneeling in front of her, tearing open a medical blood pack. They were housed in an abandoned warehouse somewhere. Buffy sighed, telling herself long ago that she'd never nest in warehouses like the other vampire's she knew.

Spike, offering it to her – "Here. Get your laughing gear around that. I need you good and strong for the big fight."

Buffy reached out, took his hands in hers and sucked down on the open blood pack.

Spike smirked at her and she looked away.

Spike, chuckling – "Don't tell me that this isn't making you randy."

Buffy grabbed the pack and pushed Spike away with a growl as her game face turned on and spilled some of the blood down her chin.

Buffy, glaring at him – "Shut up."

Spike, tossing her two more blood pack onto the ground in front of her – "Ooh, touchy."

Buffy turned her attention back to the pack and concentrated on getting some much needed nutrition. Meanwhile, Spike just sat back and waited, studying her quietly.

Buffy stopped draining the packs to glare at him and say – "Stop looking at me like that."

Spike – "Sorry. It's just that I've never really gotten a good look at your vampire face close up before. You reminded me of someone."

Buffy, just before biting into a new pack – "Really? Who?"

Spike, smiling as he remembered - "Just a girl I met once. You could say she left an impression. Actually, when you look at me like that, you look just like her. It's uncanny. No. I'm serious. Same nose. Same eyes. Same midget height."

Buffy gave him a new glare and stopped drinking to say – "Hey, I'm not that short for my age. I'm only seventeen. I just haven't had my growth spurt yet."

Spike, chuckling – "Same look when she was pissed off too. Hey, maybe you're reincarnated from her or something. I've heard about stuff like this."

Buffy stopped draining the blood packs and turned curious.

Buffy – "This girl, what was she like?"

Spike – "Don't really know. See, it's a funny thing. She knew who I was but I didn't know her. Guessed she was just a fan of my works."

Buffy, not impressed – "Killing Slayers?"

Spike, smirking – "As a matter a fact, yes. She even went on to kill one herself."

Buffy growled and scrambled along the floor, grabbing Spikes foot and dragging him over. Spike frowned, kicked her in the head lightly and shook his leg out of her grip.

Spike, jumping on to his feet – "Hey. I'm not trying to rile you here. That actually happened."

Buffy, glaring up at him – "You're so full of shit."

Spike – "Whatever. Finish your blood. We need to get somewhere safe."

Buffy ignored the elephant in the room and turned back to her blood packs.

Buffy, stopping suddenly with a frown – "Hey. Where did you get this blood from?"

Spike – "Willys. Figured you wouldn't take it from an innocent. I hear you're picky about that sort of thing nowadays."

Buffy – "Well, thanks."

Spike looked at her somewhat sourly – "That's okay because we're in this together, right?"

Buffy – "Killing Angel?"

Spike – "Yeah."

Buffy – "Yeah. We're in that together. But after that, you'd leave Sunnydale because the next time I see you, I'll kill you."

Spike – "You're kind of pushy for an invalid but fine. You want Sunnydale? You can have it for now."

Buffy got onto her feet and stood up slowly – "I'm not an invalid anymore."

Spike frowned – "Uh, hang on. Are you sure you should be standing up in your condition?"

Buffy – "I'm fine. The blood really helped."

Spike – "Okay. I knew Slayers healed fast but I didn't know it was bloody instantaneous."

Buffy frowned now too – "Uh, it's not. I just feel better. Weird."

Spike – "Must be the Slayer's blood."

Buffy growled at him and he put his hands up defensively.

Spike – "Hey, you bit her, not me. And I'm not joking. I've heard stories about Slayers blood. It's like a vampire cure-all."

Buffy – "Really?"

Spike – "That's what I've heard. When I was trying to kill you before, I was going to feed you to Drusilla, to see if that would help get her back on her feet."

Buffy – "Oh. I thought you were trying to kill me for fun."

Spike chuckled – "I never said it wasn't fun."

Buffy growled a little but stopped herself from attacking the annoying vampire.

Buffy – "So did you notice any difference after you drained the other two slayers you killed?"

Spike gave her a weird look which she didn't understand the meaning of.

Spike – "Uh, actually, I didn't drain them. Okay, I bit the first one's throat but just to kill her but I didn't drink that much. I remember her tasting nice. And for the second one, I just broke her neck. Didn't think about feeding off her."

Buffy's mouth gaped open – "You killed two slayers and you didn't even drain them? Are you nuts! Isn't that the whole point of killing people?"

Spike shrugged – "I don't drain half the people I kill. Hell, half the people I drain I don't even kill in the first go. I keep them around a while for conversation."

Buffy – "Omigod, you're fricken insane."

Spike – "Well, yeah. I'm a vampire. We're not known for clarity of thought. Why the bloody hell am I explaining this to you? You're one of us."

Buffy – "Yeah but I'm not evil."

Spike – "Sure you're not. Just keeping telling yourself that."

Buffy, insulted – "Hey, I'm really not evil."

Spike squinted at her sideways, skeptically – "You're not?"

Buffy – "No. I'm not."

Spike kept squinting at her for a while then just gave up.

Spike – "You really aren't, are you? That's just twisted."

Buffy – "From you, that's a compliment."

Buffy let out a sigh and tried to collect her thoughts.

Buffy – "I need to go home."

Spike – "What for? Weapons?"

Right then, they both turned as a new figure walked into the room.

Shortish, kind of slimy looking guy – "She probably wants a change of clothes. Dames. You know how they are."

Spike and Buffy looked at each other.

Buffy – "Friend of yours?"

Spike, frowning – "Never seen him before in my life."

The new guy tipped his hat to them both – "You can call me Whistler. I'm an old friend of Angel's. The real Angel. Not the schmuck currently running around with his face on. And by friend, I mean any friend of his is a friend of mine."

Buffy and Spike gave each other another look, neither knowing who this freak was.

Buffy – "Who the hell are you again?"

Whistler – "I'm the man behind the curtain, Buffy."

Buffy, a little angrily and confused – "And how the hell do you know my name?"

Whistler sighed - "It's my job to know people. I'm not a voyeur or anything. The guys upstairs though, don't know if they can claim the same."

Spike, with a raised eyebrow – "The guys upstairs?"

Whistler – "Upstairs, next door, in the basement. I don't know where they live. They just tell me where to go and who to talk to. The rest I leave up to you poor saps."

Buffy, to Spike – "This making any sense to you?"

Spike shook his head – "Not really."

Whistler, groaning a little – "Do I have to spell it out? I work for the powers."

This only got him long, blank looks.

Whistler – "I have visions."

This got him sanity questioning looks from both of the vampires.

Whistler – "Look babe, you get visions. From what I hear, Spike's girlfriend gets them too so what's with the looks?"

Buffy – "Sorry, it's just you're making it sound like you get visits from angels. You don't, do you?"

Whistler – "No. But I met one once. At least, I think that's what they were. I'm afraid the whole religious mythology gets a bit uncertain once you start dealing with anything more than prayer beads."

Spike – "Yeah, that's great. What are you doing here?"

Whistler – "Trying to make things right. See, this was supposed to be Angel's big day. I brought him to Sunnydale to stop Acathla."

Buffy – "You brought him here?"

Whistler – "You don't think he'd find his way here on his lonesome, do you? Geez, you've really got it bad for him, kid. You just glaze right over those glaring flaws like apathy and a lack of initiative."

Buffy – "Hey!"

Spike, smiling slightly – "Now hold on, Betty. Let's hear what the nice demon has to say."

Whistler frowned – "That's half demon to you."

Buffy – "Look, I don't care about that. Just tell me about Angel. Why would you bring him here to stop Acathla? He's the one who wants to use it."

Whistler winced – "And the powers have been giving me grief about that ever since. I screwed up. I brought Angel to Sunnydale because he has the key to close Acathla. Problem is keys work both ways. I wasn't expecting him to grind bone with you and lose his brood like that. Guess I bet on the wrong horse there. But here's the problem, no one in town has the key except him. If he activates Acathla then the only person who can close it off again will be him and his blood."

Buffy – "So what? We just have to kill him before that?"

Whistler – "Yeah. Or you could use the sword on him. It's a pity too. I had such high hopes for the lad."

Buffy – "The sword?"

Whistler, nodding – "It's a long slender piece, golden handle, kinda fairy. You can't miss it. Coat the sword with his blood and stick it into the demon and you'll close the portal. He'll probably get eaten up with it but hey, what'cha gonna do?"

Buffy – "And where can we find this sword?"

Spike – "It's the same one that's sticking out of the demon's heart."

Whistler – "But there's another one in town somewhere so keep your eyes peeled."

Buffy – "Okay. Will do. But it's not like Angel will figure out he's the key any time soon, will he?"

Spike – "Oh, didn't I mention? Angel's invitation to the graveyard was just a distraction so Drusilla could steal Giles. They're probably torturing him for information by now."

Buffy gasped – "They're WHAT!"

Spike, repeating himself like there was nothing wrong with what he had just said -"They're probably torturing him for information by now?"

Buffy – "God! Why didn't you tell me?"

Spike – "Because you were plastered to the floor, you twit."

Buffy, getting herself into action mode – "Right. We need to stop that. So Whistler? Sword through Angelus into demon statue will stop world ending? That's all you have to say?"

Whistler – "That and I'm sorry for all this hassle. I didn't know this would happen, I swear."

Buffy – "Yeah, whatever. Let's go Spike. There's somewhere we have to go first."

Spike – "Where?"

Buffy, blinking at him like it was obvious.

Buffy – "I need to get some new clothes, you idiot. I'm not going to save the world dressed like this."

To show what she meant, she tugged on her torn, bloody, tire-tracked clothes.

O-O-O-O

Giles slowly woke up and groaned when he found himself looking into Angel's smug face.

Angel, shining a pen light into Giles' eyes – "Wakey wakey."

Giles flinched back and Angelus chucked, sticking the pen light back in the Giles' pocket, where he got it from.

Giles – "What do you want?"

Angelus – "My very own pony and to dance under the maypole in the broad daylight. But since it looks like I'm not going to get any of those things, I'll settle with torturing you for information on how to activate Acathla."

Angelus spotted Drusilla smiling and he added – "And she's going to watch. Hope you don't mind an audience."

Giles looked up and took a good look of the room he was in. His eyes rested on the statue with the sword poking out of its chest.

Giles – "That must be Acathla. I should've guessed you weren't smart enough to use it."

Angelus – "Expecting him to be bigger, right?"

Giles, conversationally – "Well, yes actually."

Angelus – "Size doesn't matter. At least, that's what I told Buffy when I was plumping her inner depths. You know that she wears a lot of padding in her bra. That girl's got some serious confidence issues."

Giles sighed, realizing Angelus was just trying to get a rise out of him.

Angelus, with that perpetual smirk of his – "You know, if I were you, I'd be taking her every day. You watchers must get it in your charges every now and again. You can tell me."

Giles – "That wouldn't be very smart."

Angelus – "Oh? Too unprofessional?"

Giles – "I take you didn't hear about the last boy Buffy to a shine to?"

Angel frowned – "Excuse me? What boy is this?"

Giles, now looking Angelus in the eyes – "It happened just today actually. In the middle of the act, she accidentally broke both of the wrists. It makes me wonder what she'll do to you on purpose."

Angelus, in Giles' face – "No. You should be wondering what I'm going to do to you on purpose. Hey, you know what? You could save yourself a lot of pain just by telling me what I want to know now. But you're not going to, are you? Please tell me you're not going to."

Giles – "Do your worst."

Angelus – "I intend to."

O-O-O-O

Willow woke up with the feeling that her head was swollen.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself mumbling along to Oz who was sitting by her side with concern etched into his normally passive face.

Oz – "I'm right here, baby. How are you feeling?"

Willow – "My head feels like a pickle."

Oz blinked a few times and looked to Xander who was also looking very concerned right about now.

Willow closed her eyes and tried to formulate a more calming sentence.

Willow – "My head hurts but I think I'm okay. What about everyone else? Have you heard from Buffy?"

Xander stood back a little, obviously holding something back as Cordelia walked into the room.

Cordelia noticed Willow was awake and blew out a sigh of relief – "Well, at least that's one less thing to worry about. She's okay, right?"

Willow – "I think I'm okay. Umm, but what about Buffy?"

Cordelia clenched a little and didn't answer.

Willow, her eyes widening – "What happened to Buffy? Tell me."

Xander – "She attacked us."

Willow's eyes strained opened even wider – "She what!"

Xander – "After you got knocked out, Cordelia and I dragged you out. We shouldn't have left Giles and Kendra like that. Now Kendra's dead and Giles is nowhere to be seen. Willow.. Buffy killed Kendra."

Willow stared at him, disbelieving him – "She wouldn't do that."

Xander – "No one wants to think that but who else could've beaten Kendra? Oh, and Spike's isn't handi-capable anymore. He's the one who gave me this."

Xander pointed up to the fresh black eye on his face.

Cordelia – "Angel must have gotten to her somehow when she visited him in the graveyard. Spike and him probably ganged up and done something to her."

Xander – "Actually, it might have happened before then. Remember when Angelus turned Jenny? And Buffy killed her? I didn't want to say anything at the time but I think the council was reconsidering its protection of Buffy. By slaying Jenny, a friend, she proved to them that she could be trusted. I think it was just an act to throw us off. Maybe Buffy never did break free of Angel's control."

Willow, holding a hand to her head – "That doesn't matter now. How are we going to stop Angelus without Buffy or Kendra? We can't fight them alone. And they've got Giles too."

Cordelia – "I visited that warehouse the council own and I talked to some of them about this. They've already got soldiers flying over from England. Once they're here, they'll scour Sunnydale and find Buffy. Apparently the council has magic they can use to find her."

Willow groaned – "But how long does it take for a plane to get from England to LAX? Then they'll have to drive out here. Don't you get it? By that time, they could have turned Giles and he'll tell them everything they want."

Cordelia – "Oh-my-god! That is so gross. They wouldn't turn him."

Willow, frowning – "Why not?"

Cordelia – "Hello, because he's old."

Willow – "They'll turn him just to destroy the world not because they want a new playmate."

Cordelia – "Yeah but still, eww. That's so gross."

Xander – "So the council doesn't have the time to do anything? What do we do?"

Willow – "We have to do something."

The four people in the room looked at each other for a beat.

Oz – "Like what?"

Willow – "I don't know. Something. Oh, I know what we can do."

Xander – "What?"

Willow – "We can give Angel back his soul."

Xander groaned – "Willow. The last time we tried that we lost half of our men. The stronger half at that. Am I the only one thinking it's insane how much we're putting our trust in the hands of vampires? Besides, giving Angel back his soul is pointless. Kendra, uh, bless her soul, said as much. The instant we give him back his soul, the other vampires in the room will just kill him. "

Willow, nodding grimly – "And it will kill Buffy."

Xander, nodding also – "And it will kill Buffy… Oh! Oh, that's sneaky. But there's still the problem of all the other vampires. Drusilla, Spike and.. and Giles."

A large part of Xander couldn't believe he just said that. The high stakes they were playing just wouldn't sink in.

Willow bit her bottom lip as she thought about that.

Willow – "I don't know how to fix that. But curing Angel will give us some time. It will make a distraction at least."

Cordelia – "Why don't we just restore all their souls?"

Willow blinked at her – "Because there's no way I've got enough power to restore more than one soul at a time."

Cordelia – "No, I mean, we restore Angel's soul. Then we restore another vampire's soul. Then another and then another. They'll just kill themselves before they have a chance to destroy the world."

Willow sighed – "Let's just try restoring Angel's first, shall we? Umm, we'll need the ingredients. Uh, could we get them from the library?"

Cordelia – "I'll get them. The police would be gone by now."

Xander – "I'll walk you out. I want to, uh, check on the council's progress. And we need to get Willow a doctor to look at her."

O-O-O-O

Spike and Buffy walked up to the front door of the Summers residence when suddenly the door opened and Joyce was waiting for them on the other side.

Buffy – "Oh, mom, I thought you were going out tonight."

Joyce – "I was and I did and now I'm back. What happened to you? Why are you out this late?"

Spike – "She got run over by a car a few times."

Joyce blinked at Spike – "She what!"

Buffy laughed and pushed Spike a little – "Oh hey, this is Spike. He's a real kidder. Aren't you Spike?"

Spike raised an eyebrow at Buffy and then shrugged – "Yeah, that's right. I'm a barrel of laughs."

Then Spike looked between Buffy and Joyce as Buffy stood there awkwardly.

Spike, a little confused – "You live with your mom?"

Buffy, giving him an odd look back – "So?"

Joyce had her hands on her hips, totally ignoring the tire marks across Buffy's shirt – "Do you know what time it is? Do you know how worried I've been?"

Buffy faltered more than a little then just barged her way in – "Mom. I'm kind of busy right now and I can't go into it."

Joyce stopped Buffy, grabbing her by the arm – "You had better start going into it."

Buffy looked down and where Joyce held her – "Let me go."

Joyce – "No. I want to know what you've been doing and who is this man?"

Buffy, flaring up – "You want to know? You really want to know?"

Joyce, matching her daughter's tone – "Yes. I really want to know."

Buffy, growling – "No, you really don't but I'll tell you anyway."

Then Buffy forced her game face on and Joyce's face turned into one of total, disbelieving shock.

Buffy – "I'm a vampire, mom. You remember me telling you about them? No? Well that's because you thought I was insane! You didn't listen. You've never listened! And now I'm one of them."

Joyce had backed off from Buffy, backed up against the wall as Buffy stalked towards her.

Joyce – "Buffy. I-I don't know what's going on but this isn't you."

Buffy – "You're half right, mom. You've never known what's going on."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	25. 8d Tire iron therapy

O-O-O-O

Scene – torture room.

Angelus lifted Giles' head by the hair, looking him in the eyes.

Angelus – "Yup. Still got some fight in you. I must say, I'm impressed."

Giles, with a dry mouth – "Why thank you. I'm not."

Angelus – "Did you know that it's possible to torture someone without even breaking the skin? Oh no, I'm not talking about the phone book method either. It's kind of like acupressure. I tried it once and it works but it's just not as much fun. What do you think?"

Giles – "I think Buffy's going to kill you."

Angelus – "She'll be too busy mourning over the loss of her friend."

Giles' head shot up at that news and Angelus knew he hit a nerve.

Angelus, grinning in appreciation – "Poor Kendra, I knew her well. It's a pity I wasn't there to kill her myself. Would've been a kick to watch the fire in her eyes go out. Tell me, Giles, have you ever killed a man before?"

Giles didn't answer as Angelus knelt down so that their eyes were level against each other.

Angelus – "You really should try it some time. It's one of the most wondrous things, to stare into a dying man's eyes. See, at first, there's denial. They can't believe that they're dying. Then they come to the horrible realization that this is the end and they fight against it. Boy, do they fight. Then there's something else, something indescribable, just as the lights start to dim. It's something beautiful but do you want to know what the best part is?"

Giles clenched as Angel's hands found their way to his throat and squeezed.

Angelus, staring deeply into Giles' green eyes – "When they die, they don't go on to the next plane. No, I swallow their soul with my eyes."

Then Angelus chuckled and let Giles' throat free. As he turned around he found the two vampire minions in the room giving him weird looks.

Angelus, explaining – "I'm just playing with his head. Sheesh."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Summer's lounge room.

Joyce was sitting down in a lazy-boy chair with a tumbler of scotch in her hands. Spike had a similar one but he wasn't drinking from it.

Joyce took a small sip from her tumbler then rested it down in her lap again. She gave Spike a furtive glance and then looked back down at the scotch.

Joyce – "So are you one too?"

Spike, looking up – "A vampire? Yes. I'm a vampire."

Joyce – "Were you the one who, uh – "

Spike – "No. I didn't turn Buffy into a vampire."

Joyce – "She doesn't.. she doesn't drink blood, does she?"

Spike – "I'd say so."

Joyce took another sip of scotch.

Spike – "But generally not straight from people. She probably gets it from a butcher or bribes someone at the hospital."

Joyce – "And have we met somewhere? Because you look –"

Joyce stopped talking when Spike starting nodding.

Spike – "At the school. You hit me with an ax that one time."

Joyce, stifling a small laugh – "Oh. Sorry."

Spike – "Water under the bridge."

Joyce – "So you're a friend of Buffy's now? Teaching her the ways of a vampire?"

Spike snorted, coughing a little into his scotch. Joyce looked at him, not understanding the joke.

Spike – "Sorry. It's just, that's funny. Buffy doesn't have vampire friends. She kills vampires."

Joyce blinked at him – "She whats!"

Spike – "Oh, uh, see, vampires tend to be evil. They kill people. Haven't you ever seen a vampire movie?"

Joyce – "Well, yes but they aren't really like that. Are they?"

Spike, nodding – "Pretty much. Except we're not all from Transylvania."

Buffy came down the stairs in a fresh pair of blue jeans and a tight fitting white cotton T-shirt. For some reason Spike couldn't fathom, she had decided to accessorize with a heap of golden earrings too.

Buffy – "Ready, Spike?"

Spike, getting out of his chair – "I'm ready."

Joyce got out of her chair, alarmed – "Ready for what? Buffy, you're going nowhere until you explain what's going on."

Buffy – "Mom. You remember Giles? The librarian from my school? Well, a bunch of vampires have kidnapped him and they're torturing him right now for information on how to activate an ancient demony artifact that they'll use to plunge the world into hell. So now that's explained, I'll be going."

Joyce – "Whoa, you are not going anywhere. This is insane. You can't risk your life like that. We'll call the police and they'll sort this mess out."

Buffy blocked her mother's route to the phone – "No, you won't! No cops. Cops only have guns and guns don't do anything to vampires."

Spike – "That's true enough. I've been shot plenty of times."

Buffy, pulling out a sharpened wooden stake from somewhere – "The proper way to kill a vampire is with one of these which isn't standard police issue. Mom, we're the only ones who can stop this."

Joyce, with motherly concern and not a small portion of panic – "But Buffy, you're .."

Buffy – "What? Small? A girl? Blonde? Yeah, I know all that. But mom, me and Spike fighting on the same side, I don't think anything can stop us. Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

Joyce – "Well, if Spike is so good, why don't you let him handle it?"

Spike chuckled – "Thanks for the vote of confidence, luv but – "

Buffy, stopping Spike – "Shut it, Spike."

Buffy, back to Joyce – "Mom. I've been doing this for years. I've been fighting vampires before I was one myself. That's why I burnt down that gym. You thought I was just crazy, but hey, silver lining! I'm not a delinquent. I'm actually saving lives out there and I'm really good at it too."

Joyce didn't seem very comforted by this.

Buffy - "It could be worse."

Joyce, exasperated - "How!"

Buffy - "I could be gay or uh, I could've joined a neo-nazi cult."

Joyce – "No you couldn't have. We're Swiss, not German."

Buffy frowned – "We're Swiss? Since when were we Swiss? No, forget answering that. We need to go and I need you to stay right here and not do anything crazy."

Joyce – "No. You are not leaving me to go out and get yourself hurt."

Buffy – "Sorry mom. But I am. I'll see you later."

Joyce – "No! You are not leaving this house. You can't just drop something like this on me and just leave."

Buffy, sighing – "Mom, if I don't go now. People are going to die. And for your information, I'm not just dropping this on you. I tried to explain all this a long time ago but you wouldn't listen. Now sit down, shut up and let me do my job. Or do I have to show you my business face again?"

Joyce slowly sat back down in her chair and felt very awkward, confused and ashamed. A big part of her wanted to rise back up and tear into her daughter for treating her this way but she listened to the part that hoped that if she acted a little more understanding, she would eventually get to the bottom of this and that her daughter would come back to her safe and sound.

The problem with the last part was that it meant she would be doing nothing. Realising this, she took comfort in the fact that this all could be a very realistic nightmare.

As Buffy and Spike walked out the front door, Joyce still stayed sitting and wondering whether or not she was doing the right thing.

Buffy, outside on the lawn – "God, could this day get any worse?"

Spike - "Your mum seemed nice."

Buffy - "Shut up, Spike."

Spike – "But a word of advice, don't turn her. Take it from me, turning family never works out."

Buffy, giving him a weird look – "And why would I turn her? I don't turn people."

Spike shook his head in dismay – "Forgot who I was talking to for a moment there."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Willow's hospital room.

Oz was still by Willow's side by the time the morning sun had risen. Its benevolence was shining through the windows, tinting the room with vanilla.

Cordelia walked into the room with Willow's backpack that she had left in the library. It was packed full of the magical requirements for the restoration spell and a few other things that Cordelia decided might be useful.

Willow, surprised at the tall girl's sudden entrance – "Cordelia, you're back. Did you get everything?"

Cordelia, opening the bag up for Willow – "I think so. Uh, do you think Oz could do Giles' part because I was really comfortable with my part, doing the incense and stuff."

Oz looked to Willow who gave him a smile.

Willow to Oz – "It's easier than you'd think."

Oz – "Okay. I'll try."

Willow - "Uh, one thing. Xander's not with you?"

Cordelia shook her head and shrugged simply.

Cordelia – "I'm his girlfriend, not his keeper."

O-O-O-O

Inside the vampire's mansion, Drusilla had taken over the interrogation of Giles from Angelus.

Spike had managed to wheel himself back to the lair in time to stop Angelus from tearing Giles' head off with his bare hands. He wasn't exactly sure what Buffy would do if he let Giles die but he didn't feel the need to aggravate the Slayer. Not when so much of this plan relied on her.

Instead of just torturing Giles, Spike decided it would be a good idea if they introduced him to Drusilla. She had his head held gently, almost lovingly in her hands and his eyes were locked into her impossibly dark brown eyes.

Giles cried out as his mind caved inwards and Drusilla's essence dove into him, through his eyes, filling him up until he felt like his head would explode from the pressure.

Drusilla, starting to sag a little – "He's so very strong."

Angelus, whispering into Drusilla's ear – "But you're stronger."

Drusilla stopped focusing to make a tired, strained laugh then she grimaced as Giles pushed back with his mind.

Angelus, getting impatient – "Come on, crush him."

Stirred on by his word, Drusilla pushed again into Giles' mind and Giles let out one final cry then went limp. Drusilla took a few moments to collect herself before pushing with questions.

Drusilla – "Now tell me, what is the key?"

Giles, without any feeling – "Angel's blood is the key."

Angelus let out a chuckle and looked to Spike – "Hey, I'm the key."

Spike, with a smirk – "I always knew you were special. It's that twinkle in your eyes."

Angelus, to Drusilla – "Ask him why I'm the key?"

But Drusilla had already slipped out of Giles' mind and was holding her head as if she had swallowed too much icecream, moaning a little as she did.

Angelus took her in his arms and hugged her in a consoling way – "Aww, did he hurt you?"

Drusilla, miserably – "Yes. He wouldn't give into me like he should have."

Angelus kissed her on the forehead and chuckled a little.

Angelus – "That was hot stuff you just did. As a reward, you get to kill him. That will make you feel better."

Spike, wheeling up to them – "Arr, no. Let's not just yet. What if there's something else we haven't figured out? Let's just keep him alive for now."

Drusilla, pouting – "Can I at least play with him?"

Angelus, frowning – "I don't know what you mean by that but no. We're going to do the ritual right now. Any moment now I'm expecting a visit from our friendly neighborhood Slayer and her band of merry girls. Won't you just feel silly if the world ended and you were a pile of dust when it happened?"

Drusilla frowned and turned to Giles, her fingers lingering on the side of his head as she said – "I'll come back to you, later."

Giles didn't answer as the three vampires moved out into the main courtroom, where the statue of Acathla stood. Angelus walked over to one of the lesser vampires in the room and took the scroll from him.

Angelus sighed as he unfolded the scroll and skimmed over the Latin portion of the invocation of Acathla one more time.

Angelus – "God, I hate Latin."

O-O-O-O

Scene – On the streets of Sunnydale just outside Angel's mansion.

A big rig truck's engine churned impatiently as it crawled along at a snails place.

Then it broke abruptly and stayed stationary for a good few moments as the driver figured out how to use the stick. He got something wrong and the engine complained loudly.

Xander, in the drivers seat in the big rig – "Hell of a first driving lesson."

He looked down at the stick and tried it again. This time, he got it to reverse correctly and turned it towards the driveway. As the nose of the truck slowly lined up towards the mansion, a hyena-like smile crept onto Xander's face.

Xander, with a disturbing amount of zeal – "Ohhh yeah! Xander's got a brand new bag."

Then the driver's side door swung open and a small skinny arm reached in and yanked Xander clear from the truck.

The wind was knocked out of him when he hit the ground and he couldn't defend himself when Buffy picked him by the shirt.

Buffy – "Pass this along to Cordy for me."

Then she elbowed him in the head, sending him sprawling across the driveway and spiraling into instant unconsciousness.

She was just about to move on when she realized Xander had brought Kendra's carry case with him. Buffy walked over to where it fell, zipped it open and couldn't help but smile by what she saw inside.

Buffy, pulling out a long slender sword with a golden handle – "Nope. It's not you Xander. It's Buffy who's got a brand new bag."

O-O-O-O

Back in the mansion, Angelus had finished the invocation and cut into the palm of his hand with a knife.

Then he spun around and showed his blood, the key, to the rest of the room.

Angelus - "Tonight! Everything changes!"

Buffy, walking in from a side entrance - "Oooh. Ominous."

Almost all of the vampires in the room turned to her.

Angelus, bored – "Yes. It is ominous. Omens generally are."

Buffy, looking around the room – "So this is where you've been holed up, is it? Don't you think it's a little decadent?"

Angelus -"It's not decadent. It's opulent. Besides I like decadence. And what do you think you're doing here? You don't have a chance of beating all of us."

Buffy chuckled evilly – "Alone I don't. But I get by with a little help from my friends."

That was Spike's signal and he stood up, out of his wheelchair and clobbered Angelus in the back of the head with a tire iron. Angelus went down like a sack of potatoes. Drusilla stared in shock as Spike vented some of his unresolved issues out on the vampire who had been making his life an unliving hell for the past few months.

Spike, really getting into clubbing Angelus – "Take that, you bloody animal!"

Drusilla ran at Spike, jumping on his back and tackling him to the ground while the other vampires in the room attacked Buffy.

O-O-O-O

Back at the hospital, everything looked set for the ritual of restoration, an orb of thesulah cradled in Willow's lap.

Oz – "Is everything set?"

Willow nodded – "Yup. All my stuff is in order. Let's do this. Oz, I read a passage then you read a passage."

Oz nodded in understanding and then there was a long pause as nothing happened.

Willow – "Uh, you go first."

Oz – "Oh. Sorry."

And then Oz looked down at the scribbled notes in his hand and started reading out the first passage.

O-O-O-O

Scene – Back at the mansion.

While Buffy was contending with two vampires at once, Angelus picked himself off the floor with a groan and headed towards Acathla.

Buffy was getting pummeled against a wall with punches when suddenly there was a flash of silver and both vampires reeled backwards, screaming as they did. A bloody stripe was cut across of them horizontally, across their chests and arms.

Now that she had some maneuvering space Buffy spun, sword now in hand, and decapitated both vampires in one clean move.

Then, as if on cue, Angelus gripped the handle of the sword embedded in Acathla's heart and pulled. It slid out its stone sheath with a lightshow of brilliant yet harmless fireworks and all eyes turned towards Angelus.

While Drusilla was busy mooning and swooning over her sire, Spike took her head in his hands from behind and slammed her sideways into a wall, knocking her clean out with the impact.

Angelus, now back to his cocky self, swirled the sword a few times with some practice strokes.

Angelus, grinning at Buffy – "Oooh, you got close. But it's too late now."

Buffy – "It's never too late, Angel. Not even after you die. I'm living proof of that."

Angelus, chuckling – "So what's your plan? Killing me and then stabbing Acathla yourself?"

Buffy, holding the sword en-garde – "There can be only one."

Then both of them brought their swords down against the other and sparks flew off as the razor sharp edges clashed and slid against each other. Both pushed the swords sideways and they span with each other. On the return spin, Buffy reached out to cut Angel's belly but missed while Angelus used his longer reach to his advantage and slashed at Buffy's head but only cut a few loose strands of golden hair from the top of her head as she ducked under it.

Angelus, with new appreciation – "I never knew you could use a sword."

Buffy, scoffing – "I started practicing months ago. Where have you been?"

Then Angelus came at her, swinging the sword in a sideway figure eight motion, using skills that Buffy never knew he possessed. She blocked and blocked again as each blow came but couldn't help but be pushed back under the tireless assault. The wall rushed up behind her and she jumped up onto it, even as Angelus thrust forwards towards her. When she hit the wall, she somersaulted over him, bringing the sword down and clipping Angelus on the shoulder as she passed over his head.

When she landed on her feet, she turned back to find that Angelus had lodged his sword in the wall. Using this chance, she lunged forward. But it wasn't meant to be. At the exact time he needed it, the sword wrenched free and Angelus swung back wildly, scoring a deep cut into Buffy's arm as she only half-blocked the attack. The sheer momentum of the attack knocked her off her feet.

As she got up, she used her left hand to hold onto the cut on her right arm and she wondered how long it took for vampires to grow back severed limbs. She was reasonably sure they could grow limbs back but the actual methods behind it were still a mystery to her.

Angelus let her get her "breath" back as he examined the cut on his shoulder.

Angelus – "I forgot how limber you are. Pity we never put that to good use. Such a waste."

Buffy – "I'll tell you what. You stick the sword back in the stone and I'll make you king for a day. That offer I gave you at the graveyard still stands."

Angelus – "Really? I thought it just a tactic to keep me occupied while your friends restore my soul."

Buffy, almost conversationally – "Actually, my friends told me to go kick your ass while they restore your soul but I liked my way better."

Angelus sighed and lowered the sword towards the ground.

Angelus – "Buffy. Why are you doing this? You should be with me, not them, not the food. Don't you see? You're better than they there. You're higher up on the food chain."

Buffy – "Maybe I am but I don't think our relationship will work when you're trying to destroy the world."

Angelus – "Why not? You hate this world just as much as I do."

B, frowning in disagreement – "I don't hate the world."

Angel – "Yes you do. The pain, the constant hunger and suffering we go through every day. Don't tell me you're content with that. You know better."

Buffy, adjusting her footing a little -"Well.. But you can't just destroy it."

Angelus - "Why not? I have the power. Tell me, what's your reason for living? The show must go on? Please, that's not living, that's slavery. And I'm no ones slave."

Buffy - "Because it's wrong… and dumb. Where are you going to live with no world?"

Angelus, laughing out loud - "I'll be dead, won't I? But you obviously don't know anything about the afterlife. Everyone you kill in this world has to serve you in the next. When I die, I'll be a GOD! with an entire planet of slaves bowing to me. I'll pleasure myself with a fresh nun every morning and a school teacher every night. For lunch, I think I'll take an innocent little red head. It'll be the same one every time and I'll make you watch as I tear her open."

Buffy, looking at him with disgust, "Oh god. You're.. You're nuts!"

Angelus, menacingly – "And you're dessert. Tell me, Buffy. Which did you like more? Feeding on innocents or having sex with me?"

Buffy, pausing as if to think about it – "Gee. Do I have to choose? They were both pretty - Uh, hey, did that statue just growl?"

Buffy turned to see the statues face become animated, its ruby like eyes sparkling with malicious intent and its mouth slowly creasing open to bare it's fangs. From inside its now gaping maw, a whirling, portal of chaos opened up.

While she was staring in horror, Angel lunged at her, stabbing her right through the heart with his sword. Taken by surprise she cried out in agony and in horror, dropped her sword and clutched onto Angel's arms, holding him tightly, to steady herself against the weapon she was impaled with.

Angelus, whispering to her as she shook in his arms – "Its okay, honey. We're going home."

Blood issued freely from Buffy's eyes as the pain became overwhelming, blinding her, so she couldn't see the portal growing to an ever increasing size behind her. Angelus watched her, fascinated, as she languished in the throes of intense pain, latching onto him like a lifeline, as if he would help her.

Then she pulled on him quickly, pulling him forward all of a sudden, towards the portal. Then the sword stuck into something solid, right in the center of the ever increasing storm of the abyss behind her.

Angelus realized what Buffy had done, pinning the sword back into the demon's heart and he struggled desperately to pull it back out.

Angelus – "No! NO!"

Struggle as he might, Buffy held him there as the portal slowly curled around both of them. Then it completely swallowed them and was sucked back into Acathla's closing mouth, leaving no trace of them except for the sword still imbedded in Acathla's heart.

Then there was only silence. No vampires. No whirling vortex of doom. No sword play.

From where he sat watching, Giles dropped his head down and finally let the tears flow freely.

Then the front door was battered down and he heard what sounded like an army storming the mansion.

A mass of Council hired soldiers soon found their way to Acathla and set up firing positions with calls of "clear!" ringing around the building.

More mercenaries entered into Giles' personal torture room, one of them kicking open a large dresser that would be big enough to hide one or two vampires but nothing was found.

One of the soldiers walked over to Giles and put a thumb to Giles' neck, testing for a pulse.

The soldier examining Giles, calling back – "He's alive."

Robson, stepping forward's out of the swarm of mercenaries – "Thank god."

One of the soldiers next to him put a finger to his ear and listened to his earpiece. Then he turned to Robson.

Soldier with the ear piece – "Sir. The place is a bust. What ever happened here was finished long before we came along. We've found a few piles of bone dust but that's it."

Robson frowned and turned to Giles – "Giles, what happened here?"

Giles, with the doom struck eyes of a broken man – "I saw it all."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Back at the hospital.

Willow blinked hard a few times, trying to clear her head.

Willow – "That was so weird."

Oz – "Did it work?"

Cordelia – "I think so. It did, didn't it? Willow?"

Willow – "Huh? Oh yeah. It worked. I'm sure it worked. Umm.. What just happened again?"

Cordelia, frowning – "Maybe we shouldn't have been doing magic when she's got a concussion."

Oz, with concern – "I think you're right."

O-O-O-O

Xander groaned as he was helped to sit up and someone pointed a pen light into his eyes.

Pushing away the light and groaned again – "Arr! What's your problem? You don't just.. Oh god."

He tried to get to his feet but was held down by one of the council's soldiers.

Robson – "Relax, boy. There's nothing you need to do right now."

Xander watched as Giles was taken away in a stretcher.

Xander, getting to his feet anyway and ran after Giles.

Xander – "Giles. Oh man. What happened?"

Giles – "Buffy. She saved us."

Xander, shaking his head – "No, she couldn't have."

Giles – "She did. Oh, Xander. She died to save us all."

With that said, Xander's eyes dropped from Giles as the soldiers lifted him up into one of their squad trucks and his eyes drifted down to the ground as confusion and some very uncomfortable feelings flooded through him.

O-O-O-O

Out on the freeway, Spike was speeding along in a car with blacked out windows.

Drusilla was unconscious in the passenger side and he took his eyes off the road to look over at her. He grabbed by the arm and yanked her towards him, then gripped her like a teddy bear, hugging her around her bust.

Then with an unusual sign of gentleness and sensitivity, he kissed her on the top of her head.

O-O-O-O

The Scoobies collected in the council's warehouse of operations, along with a large quantity of the mercenaries.

Willow, in a wheelchair – "So Buffy wasn't evil?"

Giles – "It appears not."

Cordelia whacked Xander in the arm hard – "And you had me run her over! Do you know how much panel beating my car needs now?"

Xander, rubbing his arm – "Ow! Hey! You thought she was evil too. Besides, what was she doing with Spike?"

Giles – "It appears that they had formed some sort of alliance."

Xander – "Yeah. See, she was evil."

Willow – "But she couldn't have been evil. She stopped Angelus from plunging the world into hell."

Xander, at a loss – "Uh, well, I don't understand that part yet."

Giles – "I can only conclude that Buffy was turned to Angel's side but managed to get her control back in the nick of time, to save us all."

Xander, feeling a little ashamed – "Yeah. That must be it."

There was a long, silent, respectful pause as everyone lent a thought to the vampire they would sorely miss.

Willow - "How's Joyce handling this?"

Xander – "Oh god. I haven't even thought of her. Giles?"

Giles – "Uh, I, umm, I guess we should tell her something."

Cordelia – "What are we going to do?"

Xander – "I don't know about you but I'm going to rest up. All this head injury can't be good for me."

Willow – "I'm with you there."

Cordelia – "No. I mean, what are we going to do now that we don't have Buffy OR Angel? Who's going to protect us now?"

Willow, like it was obvious – "We are."

Cordelia, looking at her oddly – "Huh?"

Willow – "I've read Giles' prophecy. The one about Buffy."

Giles, with a cross look – "You've been going through my office?"

Willow – "Well, uh, yes, a little. Just for the important stuff."

Cordelia – "What does that have to do with what's going to happen now?"

Willow – "Everything. I think I understand what the Slayer who wrote those prophecies was trying to say. The watchers thought that Buffy was the harbinger for this new golden era but it doesn't read like that at all. It's not just about Buffy. It's about her friends more than it is about her. It's about us."

Cordelia – "So?"

Xander, coming to a realization – "She's saying that we change the world ourselves."

Willow – "That's right. Buffy just shows us the way."

Oz, not quite getting it along with Cordelia – "And this way would be what?"

Willow – "Action. We have to take action."

Cordelia – "Uh but previous experience has shown that when we take action, we die."

Willow – "And how was it any different for Buffy? Besides, if we don't anything, we'll just die anyway."

Xander – "Which would you prefer? Dying on your feet or dying on your knees?"

Cordelia – "Now isn't the time to quote the movie Gladiator."

Giles – "And I don't want any of you to do anything rash. Particularly you, Xander. You've been quite partial of that of recent."

Xander – "I'm not saying we should do anything totally insane."

Cordelia – "Yeah. Just a little insane, right?"

Xander, smirking – "Actually, yes. Just a little insane."

Willow, shaking her head – "No, it's not insane. The only insane thing we could do is nothing."

Cordelia, frowning – "You two are really getting behind this gung ho thing, aren't you?"

Xander and Willow both nodded.

Oz, strangely neutral sounding – "Then I'm in too."

Cordelia and Giles shared a small look and a slight shrug.

Giles – "For what it's worth, I'll help."

Cordelia, sighing – "Then I'm in too."

There was a moment of silence and the five Scoobies felt something unfamiliar wash through them as they resigned themselves to cutting their lives shorter than was strictly necessary.

None of them knew what lay in their future or whether they would have one to lie in. But they knew it was a new day and most importantly, they knew that things were about to change around here in a big way.

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next Chapter.


	26. 9a How the other half lives

O-O-O-O

Faith screamed, roared and the world shook with her thrashings. Hands and rope clamped down around on her but nothing could stop her from breaking free. She had to get free and she had to destroy but most of all she had to feed.

A voice demanded her to calm down but that only made her fight harder, to fight blindly against it.

They tried to slip something into her mouth and she lashed out and bit into it, tearing into it with their teeth. It was flesh and sickly salty blood spilled out onto her tongue and she sucked on it deeply, hoping that maybe it would satisfy this burning thirst she had.

The same masculine voice she heard earlier spoke out to someone else - "We need to get somewhere with shade. There, the underground parking."

Her world lurched and the blood she was drinking burnt as it slid down her throat, becoming something else entirely, a white hot fire that cut into her like knives from the inside.

Faith's eyes snapped open and she let go of the wrist she was biting into. She thrashed around as liquid pain flooded through her but her hands were tied down and a man was sitting on her chest to keep her down.

The man didn't move and Faith couldn't make anything out about him as it was too dark to see.

They came to a sudden stop and Faith's held bumped against something, confusing her. She guessed she must have been in a van or a trailer or something similar.

The man, again to someone else – "There's some in the chili bin."

Elsewhere in the tight space, someone moved about, probably getting something from the chili bin. Soon after that, they gave something to the man. It was a plastic container and he held it to her mouth and Faith realized it was full of some sort of drink.

Man – "Drink."

She found that there was something soothing about his voice and she drank from the container he placed to her mouth. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten. When the man took away the food, she whimpered a little, very pitifully.

As she licked her lips, the man gently stroked her hair and spoke – "That's a good girl, Faith. You're a real good girl. But you look tired. You want some more or do you want to go to sleep?"

At the sound of more, Faith growled and the world started to light up as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The man placed another container to her eager mouth and chuckled – "I guess you want more."

She closed her eyes, content to enjoy being fed, regardless of the situation. It sated her a little and after the second bag was finished, the man spoke again.

Man – "Sleep. You're safe now."

Despite how many people had lied to her by telling her she was safe, she couldn't resist the promise of sleep and fell into its welcome embrace.

O-O-O-O

A door closed and Faith bolted upright, finding herself in a bed.

There was a man, THAT man, sitting at the base of her bed.

At the door, there was a girl with long blonde hair. She had plastic grocery bags in her hands and was covered from neck to toe in leather. As the blonde offered a timid smile towards Faith, the braces on her mouth become visible. As Faith stared at her, the girl looked away wordlessly and walked off towards the bathroom as if to hide. She placed the grocery bags down on the floor as she walked past Faith's bed.

The man looked at her with concern with just one eye. His other eye was covered by an eye-patch.

Xander, gently – "Faith."

Faith scooted up towards the head board, pulling the bed sheets up with her and covering herself with them as if trying to keep herself warm.

Faith – "What the fuck's going on?"

Xander, a little confused – "You don't remember?"

Faith – "Who the fuck are you?"

Xander – "Faith. I'm a friend."

Faith – "How the fuck do you know my name!"

Xander – "Like I said. I'm a friend. You can trust me."

Faith – "Stay the fuck back, mofo."

Xander, backing off the bed – "Okay. You've got trust issues. I knew that."

Faith tried to remember what happened but her memory felt like a cold vault, unable to be opened no matter how many times she punched at it.

Xander – "So you're confused. I'm not surprised. What's the last thing you remember?"

Faith, shaking her head – "I don't remember anything. What did you do to me?"

Xander frowned, never having come across a situation like this before. He reached into one of the grocery bags and pulled out a plastic container. He opened it up and showed her the contents.

Xander – "Does this help jog your memory?"

Faith looked at the blood in it and felt small stabs of pain from her stomach. Hungrily, she pulled herself up onto her hands and feet to crawl towards the blood. Before she reached it, she turned away, trying to keep a little control and wondering what sort of new addiction she had gotten hooked on.

Then her death flashed in front of her eyes and she remembered the last forty eight hours.

Faith, starting to realize – "Oh god. What did they do to me? They changed me into one of them."

Xander nodded – "Now you're getting it."

Faith, confused – "What were they?"

Xander blinked at her, not expecting that question.

Xander – "Umm, they were vampires. You can tell by the sharp teeth."

Faith thought about it this and gave Xander a skeptical look.

Faith – "You're shitting me?"

Xander sighed and gave her the container of blood – "Here, knock yourself out."

Faith abruptly forgot what she was thinking and drank the container with gusto, spilling not a small amount over her in the process. She drank it greedily and before she knew it, there was none left except for the blood trails down the sides of her face.

Afterwards Faith chuckled a little at the relief the blood gave but that was quickly replaced by the confusion she had on her face just a handful of seconds earlier.

Faith, frowning – "Uh, this is blood?"

Xander nodded.

Faith thought about this and Xander let it all sink in for her.

Xander – "I know what you're thinking. Why oh why didn't you take the blue pill?"

Faith frowned at him, asking – "And who are you again?"

Xander – "Me? I'm Xander."

Faith – "And you're..?"

Xander – "I'm the guy who found you beaten to a messy pulp and stole you away from the vampires who did that to you."

Faith – "Oh, uh, thanks."

Faith looked at what she was wearing and found her self wearing some sort of clammy black body suit. It was obviously made out of some sort of body hugging synthetic.

Xander, with a sincere, concerned look on his face – "Faith, I'm sorry those vamps got to you first. I don't even know how they did that. It doesn't make any sense."

Faith – "Why are you acting like you know me?"

Xander, with a smile – "Oh. That's because I do. See, I'm from the future. Eight years in the future to be more precise. We're friends. Or we were friends. Will be friends? Hmm. Past and future tense turns into a right pig with time travel."

Faith – "You're from the future?"

Xander nodded – "Yup. I'm cool like that. And I'm a vampire like you."

Faith – "You're a vampire from the future?"

Xander nodded again.

Faith looked around the room, as if looking for a hidden candid camera. She didn't find one, which was troubling.

Xander – "I get that this is a lot to take in. I remember when I first got turned. That was a real trip."

Faith – "So you knew me in the future? And we what? dated?"

Xander snorted a little – "Uh. No. Nothing like that. Just good friends. Your boyfriend hated me by the way."

Faith – "Okay. This is crazy. You already know who I'm going to be screwing in eight years time?"

Xander – "Yeah. But I don't think you'll get to screw that guy this time around. Oh sure, he's a nice guy for an asshole but you see, he's got this problem with vampires. I don't think he'll touch you with a barge pole now that you're turned."

Faith frowned – "Huh? I thought you said he.. huh?"

Xander – "Oh, uh, this is going to confuse you. It's like this. In my original timeline, you never turned into a vampire."

Faith – "Okay. So how did you know me? If I wasn't a vampire, what would I be doing hanging around one like you?"

Xander – "It's like I said. We were friends. We umm, fought evil together."

Faith gave Xander a sanity questioning look.

Faith – "We fight evil together? You're a vampire from the future that fights evil? And in your future, I'm not a vampire but here I am, in the past, being a vampire. What the hell are you talking about?"

There was a knock on the bathroom door and Xander turned towards it.

Xander, calling out to the door – "It's okay. I think she's calmed down. You can come out."

The door opened and that blonde with the braces came out, sitting down on a chair.

Faith noticed there was something really different about the blonde. No, actually, there were a lot of things different about her. Firstly, she was really shy, to the point of being servile. Secondly, all that tight black leather she was wearing just made her want to rip it off and just grind their naked bodies together, making her sweat and making her call Faith mommy. Then, just the blonde's peak comes, bite into one of those full, round, juicy -

Xander, yelling for her attention – "HEY!"

Faith blinked, snapping out of the wet daydream as he snapped fingers in front of her face.

Xander, sternly – "Don't even think about Tara that way. She's off limits. Do I make myself clear?"

Faith nodded and looked away, mumbling – "Sorry."

Faith's eyes kept creeping over to Tara, despite how much she much told them not to.

Faith, turning to Xander instead – "Hey, I don't suppose you've got any more of that stuff?"

Xander, chuckling and placing the grocery bag full of blood on the bed – "It's called blood."

Faith ignored him and pulled another container of blood from the bag, yanking the lid off and quaffing it down, spilling a good portion of the blood over her and onto the bed.

Both Tara and Xander winced at the display for entirely different reasons.

Xander – "Could you try to keep it off the sheets? We don't want to give hotel management the wrong idea."

O-O-O-O

Scene – A run down warehouse nested by vampires.

The sewer entrance to the warehouse opened up and Kakistos, a master vampire, walked out. He wasn't overly tall but he was stocky and his extra gnarled face and cloven hands spoke of his ancient status. He was followed by an entourage of his most elite vampires. When he found his nest in ruins, he glared at the disarray in anger.

The wooden warehouse doors had been destroyed at the front entrance. Sunlight streamed in freely and vampires hid in the shadier corners of the room.

Kakistos picked up a nearby minion who was cradling his broken arm and pulled him to their feet.

Kakistos, almost throttling the minion – "Who dared attack my territory?"

Minion - "I don't know. They had their faces covered by helmets. They shot at us with guns. They killed Jan and Clancy."

Kakistos, growling – "Hunters. How many?"

Minion – "Two. One in a van and one on foot. But they weren't human. They couldn't have been. No human is that strong. And they took the Slayer. They didn't even care about us. They just wanted her."

Kakistos' face gnarled up and he roared, throwing the wounded vampire into the burning sunlight. The minion screamed for a few long seconds as fire engulfed him until they turned to hot dust and sprinkled themselves across the floor.

Kakistos – "Mr Trick. I don't care how you do it. Find out who took my Slayer."

Trick, an unpleasantly suave black vampire next to Kakistos – "I'm on it. I know a few people who'd be interested in something as rare as a turned Slayer. I'll just –"

Kakistos, already having lost his patience – "Go!"

Trick – "Right you are, sir."

And with that, Trick turned around and left through the sewer entrance he just arrived in. A good portion of the nest followed Trick out, not wanting to be around an enraged Kakistos.

O-O-O-O

Faith's hunger had calmed down by the time she had gone through the blood Tara had just gotten them. But Faith still wanted to spank Tara and make her call her mommy. She wasn't really feeling herself but that made a lot of sense considering her recent ordeal. She was no psychologist but she didn't need one to know that she probably wouldn't feel like herself for a while. She might never get herself back.

She shook her head clear of those thoughts and looked down at the slayer's handbook in her lap.

Faith to Xander – "So you're one of these slayers too?"

Xander sniggered a little and shook his head.

Xander – "No. I used to train them back when I was human. Slayers, as far as I know, are only girls. I don't think anyone has ever figured out why."

Faith – "How do you know I'm one of these things?"

Xander - "We did a few tests on you while you were asleep. Yup, you're a Slayer."

Faith – "Are you sure I still am? After I became a vampire?"

A large part of Faith still couldn't believe she just said that.

Xander – "Yes. You're still a Slayer."

Faith – "But don't Slayer's kill vampires?"

Xander – "That's right."

Faith – "But how? Those guys, they were so strong."

Xander – "Compared to you right now? Sure. But then it looks like they've been beating you continually. Ever wonder why? It's because they're afraid of you. You're dangerous. Slayers are stronger and faster and more skilled than, uh, most vampires. There are a few which you might give you trouble. But most vampires, not a problem. You'll be faster and stronger and more skilled than almost everyone else you meet."

Faith, gripping the bed sheets a little tighter – "Why didn't they just fucking kill me?"

Xander and Tara gave each other a look. Tara more concerned for Faith's mental condition while Xander was just plain curious.

Eventually Xander just shrugged – "I haven't a clue. Look, I won't lie. I've only ever met one Slayer before who was vamped. She didn't turn evil like most vampires. I can only guess the same thing happened to you."

Faith didn't answer, not realizing there was a question there.

Xander – "Uh, you're not evil, are you?"

Faith – "What? No. Not like those other sickos. Don't mind saying I'd love to slay those assholes though. Can you blame me?"

Xander let out a sigh of relief – "Good. Everything seems to be alright under the hood."

Faith, getting up – "I wanna go kill them now. I can do that if I'm one of these Slayer things. Can't I?"

Xander, holding her down – "Whoa. Firstly, you're in no state to fight. Secondly, it's daytime and you're not dressed for it."

Faith, giving him a weird look – "Daytime?"

Xander – "We can't just walk around in sunlight. It burns us. Oh god. I'm gonna have to explain everything. Aren't I? Okay, sunlight kills us. Crosses burn us. We live by drinking blood. It doesn't have to be human blood. You can kill a vampire by sticking a wooden stake through their heart or by cutting their head off. And we're very flammable. It doesn't look like it but vampires have very dry skin."

Faith – "Sunlight kills us? Man. That sucks out loud."

Xander put on a thoughtful face then reached out and grabbed a suitcase then shoved it along the floor on its wheels towards the bathroom. It kept rolling across the floor and by sheer momentum, it wheeled inside the bathroom, through the door.

Xander – "Okay, Faith. This is what you're going to do. Go into the bathroom, have a shower or bath. I don't care which. After you finish, pick out something that fits you better. Take as long as you want. After that, we're going out. There are a few places I want to hit before nightfall."

Faith frowned – "Uh, you just said sunlight kills us. How are you going to go out before nightfall?"

Xander sighed – "You think I'm covered from head to toe in leather because I've got a fetish?"

Faith – "Well, yeah."

Xander, chuckling as he pulled a bike helmet off the floor – "Then you'd be right. But it also means I can stand a few seconds of sunlight without exploding into flames. We'll just have to cover you up too."

Faith nodded and groaned as she tried to get off the bed.

Xander – "Do you need some help?"

Faith, growling – "No. I'm fine."

Faith paused and wondered if she just growled as that didn't sound human at all.

After a while, she shook that thought out of her head and slowly stood up, finding herself to be less injured than she would have thought after all those beatings she had received.

As she was commanded, she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Now that she was in a bathroom, a nice warm shower really sounded like a good idea.

After some initial confusion, she found the zippers to the bodysuit and peeled it off herself to expose her skin covered in blue splotches.

Faith looked in the mirror, not really wanting to see just how bruised her face was.

When she didn't find herself looking back, she squinted and looked closer. Then she waved her hand in front of the mirror in confusion.

Faith – "What the - ?"

O-O-O-O

About an hour later.

Faith sat on a wooden box in the back of a van with blacked out windows. Xander was sitting down on a small mattress in the back with her while Tara drove the van through the sunlit streets. Faith was now wearing a full body suit of leather which was covered in straps. She chose that particular piece because she could tighten up the straps to fit her smaller body. By the size of it, Faith guessed Xander originally brought it for Tara. By the way it smelled of disuse, Faith guessed she had never even worn it. Another reason she picked it out was that unlike most of the other leather fetish gear Xander gave her, this suit covered her entire body and hid the horrible bruises over her body. Once Tara applied a little makeup to her face they both assured her that she was fit to face the world. With no reflection to speak of, she could only take them at their word.

Faith looked at Xander and then turned away.

Xander – "What?"

Faith – "I don't get it."

Xander – "Get what?"

Faith – "I'm a vampire slayer, right?"

Xander nodded – "It's in your blood."

Faith – "But you're a vampire. And you're going to teach me to slay vampires?"

Xander chuckled – "For starters."

Faith – "And most vampires are evil?"

Xander – "Some more than others. Oh, I get what you're confused about. You want to know what my deal is."

Faith – "Yeah."

Xander – "A really powerful witch put a spell on me to perform her every command. She commanded me to, um, stop, you know, doing evil things. So here I am, not doing evil."

Faith – "Magic?... Okay. I'll buy that. So you can't do anything evil at all?"

Xander – "The spell does have a little lee-way but not as much as I'd like. Grand theft auto seems to be the top end of what I can do."

The van slowed and pulled into a shady alleyway and into a car park.

Before Xander opened the backdoor, he turned to Faith with a serious look.

Xander – "Oh and try to be inconspicuous."

Faith, looking down at what she was wearing – "In this?"

Xander, smirking – "Sorry. I forgot who I was talking to for a moment there."

Then he opened the back door and jumped out. Faith followed him and almost immediately felt a flush of uncomfortable heat on her face as she walked into the indirect sunlight outside

She looked around for the heat source then looked up at the sky but found she couldn't. Just looking upwards at the sky make her eyeballs hurt too much. So she looked down and followed Xander as he walked over to an inconspicuous door and entered it. Faith quickly followed, finding relief in the cool darkness.

She was still reeling from her sudden case of sunstroke when she realized that the room was full of people that weren't people at all. Not only was the place full of demons but country music was being played from the jukebox in the corner.

It was in a demon nightclub. A dayclub to more accurate. Not to be mistaken for a day spa.

Behind Faith, Tara walked in quietly and shadowed Xander as he walked towards the bar.

When he met the bar, he leant across the bar and kissed the blue demon on the other side.

Xander, to the demon barmaid – "Hey, if it's not my favorite apocalypse demon."

The blue, red-eyed barmaid gave him back a coy, almost bashful look, which didn't quite seem right to Faith. Giving up on figuring this mess out, she sat down on the barstool next to Tara and scoped out the room and found that most of the room was looking back at them.

The barmaid turned to Faith and Tara then back to Xander.

Barmaid, with a raspy but oddly feminine voice – "You've picked up another stray?"

Xander made a display of shrugging – "You know me. I'm a giver. I'll have some red stuff. Give Tara what she wants and some Oh-positive for the new girl."

Tara, as the barmaid started on Xander and Faith's drinks – "Goat's milk if you have it. Please."

In record time, the demon got them their drinks and placed them on the counter.

Faith sniffed at hers before drinking and it smelt just like the blood she had drank earlier but it had a straw in it.

Xander picked up his glass and stood up to leave them.

Xander, leaning over to Tara – "Keep an eye on Faith. I'm going to mingle."

Then Xander leant over to Faith and said to her – "Keep an eye on Tara. I'm going to mingle."

Then he walked off to a shady corner in the already very shady club and Faith found herself feeling very alone, with only a shy human and a big-eared blue demon for company.

Faith, trying to strike up a conversation with Tara - "Goat's milk? Bluh! How can you drink that?"

Tara, in surprise – "It's nice. You've never tried it?"

The barmaid, putting in her two cents worth – "The human's right. Most goat things are good. Their milk, their blood, their livers, their marrow. It's all good."

Tara – "Two out of three demons prefer goat to human."

Then she spotted the barmaid looking her way and she shrunk a little in her chair.

Tara, mumbling a little – "Or s-so I hear."

The barmaid shrugged – "That sounds about right."

Faith took a better look at the barmaid and part of her couldn't believe they were looking at a demon. Faith had never been very religious but this was really bringing up some important questions.

The demon, confrontationally – "See anything you like?"

Faith – "Uh, no. I'm just looking."

Tara, explaining – "She's new."

The demon sighed – "Oh? So Xander turned her?"

Tara blinked and shook her head – "Xander? No. We um, we .. he didn't."

Faith stopped staring at the demon and looked over at Tara sitting next to her. She really was a luscious thing but Faith tried to put that thought out of her mind as she sipped on her blood. Tara was a different story to Xander. While Xander was obviously unhinged but he seems harmless, she was obviously harmless but she seemed unhinged. Very shy too.

Seeing that she wasn't needed, the barmaid walked away to do some barmaid things elsewhere.

Faith, to Tara – "So what's your story?"

Tara, a little unsure of the question – "Umm…"

Faith – "How did you get caught up with Xander?"

Tara stopped drinking her milk and thought about how to put her story into words.

Tara – "Z-z-Xander saved me. Sort of."

Faith, amused – "Just sort of? You mean you're half dead or something?"

Tara – "No. I'm half demon."

Faith raised an eyebrow – "Really? You don't look like one. Although, you aren't showing a lot of skin. Have you got scales and gills under those clothes?"

Tara, shaking her head – "No. I'm.. On my twentieth birthday, my demon side will come out and I'll stop looking human."

Faith – "Damn. And I thought I was fucked. Uh, sorry."

Tara, looking down at her lap – "I-it's okay."

Faith – "So uh, you're Xander's girlfriend then?"

Tara, huffing out little quiet laughs as she shook her head – "No. I don't think I'm his type."

Faith – "Oh come on. You haven't seen him looking at you? You're so his type."

Tara – "No. I'm not."

Faith – "Come on. He's a guy. Just show some ovaries and make yourself his type. He won't complain."

Tara just shook her head and looked down into her drink.

Faith – "You think he won't like you because of the bear trap?"

Tara, confused – "Bear trap?"

Faith, tapping her own teeth for effect – "Your braces."

Tara – "Oh. Uh. Actually, I was supposed to have them taken out a month ago."

Faith – "Then why didn't you? You've grown attached to them?"

Tara – "No. I, uh, my dad didn't have the money at the time."

Faith – "Oh. Wait. You mean you've been with Xander for a month?"

Tara nodded.

Faith – "And you haven't jumped his bones yet?"

Tara's silence made Faith chuckle.

Faith – "I'll take that as a no. Hey, I can give you some pointers if you want."

Tara – "Pointers?"

Faith – "You know. Tips. Hints. Well, you don't need any help on the clothes department. Kinky works for you. But you could do with some confidence. Maybe a little kissing practice too."

Tara's eyes went wide at that last part.

Faith couldn't help but laugh at the look – "Arr, see. You like that idea, don't you?"

Tara – "N-no I don't."

Now if only Tara could stop looking at that cute little cleft on Faith's bottom lip, she'd be able to convince herself of this lie too.

Faith couldn't help but smile at the blood rushing to Tara's face. Then her glass ran out of blood and she made that annoying gurgling sound with her straw as she tried to get the last few drops from the bottom of the glass.

Seeing that it was no use, Faith slumped in her chair.

Tara, to Faith – "You can order another. I don't think Xander will mind."

Faith – "Really? Cool."

Then she cocked her head over to the barmaid, who caught the motion and came over.

Faith, to Tara – "Hey, you know, I forgot to thank you guys."

Tara, giving Faith a weird look – "Thank us?"

Faith, giving her one back – "Yeah, for rescuing me from those freaks."

Then she turned to the barmaid – "One more of the same."

When Faith turned back to Tara, she was still giving her the same look.

Faith – "What?"

Tara – "Xander's never thanked me for anything before. I thought vampires didn't feel gratitude."

Faith now gave Tara a completely new weird look as the barmaid placed a new glass of blood on the bar for her, taking her old glass.

Faith – "So he's an asshole then?"

Tara – "N-no. I mean, I-I.. I don't know. He's a vampire. They're.."

Faith, sipping on her blood – "They're what?"

Tara – "They're evil. Uh, don't you feel evil?"

Faith thought about it and looked deeper into her mind. She found it to be full of deliciously evil intentions. Most of these stray thoughts were directed towards the blonde next to her. Faith couldn't help but smile widely at the picture of making Tara her pet, strapping a collar around her neck and making her beg for treats.

Faith, dismissively – "Huh. Maybe I am evil but I don't really feel that different. Although I don't remember enjoying this blood stuff. I wonder what they put in it."

A voice behind her – "If I'm not mistaken, it's just cows blood."

Faith turned around casually then gasped in horror when she spotted a night-skinned vampire who she never wanted to see again. If that wasn't bad enough then he brought friends along too. A lot of friends.

Trick smiled one of his patented devil may care smiles at Faith.

Trick – "Hey, Faith. Kakistos is going to be glad that we got you back."

Faith was instantly held in the cold grip with fear and in the next instant, she found herself held in the cold grip of two of Kakisto's elite troops.

Faith, calling out to her new friend – "Tara. Help me!"

But Tara was shocked still with a helpless look of her own, so Faith wasn't getting any help there.

Then a lone vampire with a bondage fixation stepped in front of the vampires and hemmed. Kakisto's vampires all stopped, almost as if giving him a chance to explain himself. Perhaps he just wanted to join their gang of little girl abductors.

Xander – "Now I'm going to give you guys a choice. You can put down my friend there or I'll kill you were you stand."

The other vampires just laughed. Xander wasn't even a master vampire. He was so young they could still see his tan lines.

Xander – "Okay then. Let's do this the hard way. Tara, you know what to do."

The vampires turned around to spot Tara bolting out of her barstool and running straight out of the door to where they parked the van.

While most of the vampire's looked on in confusion Xander pulled out one of the biggest, shiniest pistols Faith had ever seen. Xander had it leveled up to before the other vampires even realized what it was.

SHUBLACK!

The back of a vampire's head seemed to just explode, showering the other vampires and much of the bar in a thin mist of blood. The other vampires growled and swarmed forward while Xander jumped back, letting the pistol in his hands bark out more shots into the vampires. The vampires holding Faith tossed her aside, eager to kill this crazy gun nut.

For Faith, time seemed to slow down and the pistol blasting away sounded like how an echo would if you were in a subway train going the speed of light.

She grabbed at one of the vampires as he ran past her, gripping him around the collar and yanked him sideways to slam into another vampire.

Faith watched as the two vampires were thrown aside, flying through the air and over a table top as if they were in zero gravity. She stopped watching them as someone hit her in the kidneys from behind, causing her to grip her sides as she spun around to find another fist rushing towards her face.

She rolled with the blow and it slid along painfully across her cheekbone. Instead of punching back, she pulled on the arm and brought a leg up, kicking her attacker in the gut. As the vampire bent over, she grabbed the back of his head and drove her knee up. Several things broke in an intensely satisfying way as they fell back, blood oozing out of the mess where their nose should have been.

Then more vampires clambered over her and Faith found herself being dragged down. The distortion of time she had been enjoying faded away as feet and fists collided against her, knocking away her higher functions.

Above this, she heard Trick call out for them to hold her down.

Hands gripped her and she struggled desperately to fight them. That desperation slowly turned into something Faith had never felt before. It was wicked and wild and it burnt away her pain faster than any drug known to man.

Under a mass of bodies, she writhed and her mouth ached as her fangs slid down. Bones snapped and reset in her skull as her brow twisted and gnarled like old wood.

She grabbed and kicked and tore and bit, getting screams and pain in return. But all the punishment and all the trouble her foes gave her, it just fueled the fire within her. It was a fire that no one could stop.

Finding herself free, she lashed out at a vampire, tearing their throat out with dagger like nails. Then she clawed at another, drawing four red lines down his back and causing him to scream like a little girl.

The vampires scattered, running scared and scarred away from her.

As one ran past her, she pushed them to the ground with a simple push. Then jumped on them, straddled them around the chest, laughing at the look of fear on its face.

Then someone kicked her in the temple with a steel-toed boot and everything went kinda dark after that.

O-O-O-O

Faith opened her eyes to find herself tied down with Xander sitting on her stomach. She looked around and found herself inside Xander's non-descript black panel van, the "mystery machine"

Faith, groaning - "Uhhhhhhhh. Ohhhh. What hit me?"

Xander – "I did."

Faith, struggling a little with the handcuffs around her wrists – "Why?"

Xander, sighing – "Because you were attacking bystanders. You were acting crazy. You don't remember?"

Faith blinked a few times and frowned. Now that Xander mentioned it, there did seem to a few gaps in her memory. But then that wasn't unusual. She had been blocking out most of what had been happening to her since she was kidnapped by those vampires.

Faith, frowning – "What happened?"

Xander – "Well, I was fighting with those guys, and not doing a bad job either, when you pulled a wobbly and just attacked anything that got within reach. You even attacked me. You really don't remember at all?"

Faith – "Not really. It's a bit fuzzy. I didn't kill anyone, did I?"

Xander – "Nah, no one important. But this isn't a good thing. You can't fight like that. Not that you weren't doing good. That was great for your first time but I think you need to learn some control."

Faith, nodding – "Right. Control… Um, could you unlock these?"

Faith rattled the handcuffs to show what she meant.

Xander leant over with a key and put it in the lock. Instead of turning it straight away, he held the key in and looked Faith up and down with a devious smile. Finally he let up and turned the key and unlocked both of cuffs for her.

Faith, rubbing her wrists a little – "Just so you know, I'm not into being tied up."

Xander, with a crooked smile - "You shouldn't knock it till you try it."

Faith, with a crooked smile of her own – "But hey, if you like that sort of thing, maybe I could tie you up some time."

Xander, a little more seriously – "Yeah. Maybe later. Look, I wanted to ask you something. Those guys, they were the ones who kidnapped you, right?"

Faith just nodded grimly in the affirmative.

Xander – "I don't get this. Why do they have such a hard on for you?"

Faith couldn't help but laugh.

Faith – "Oh come on. Just look at me. I'm hot."

Xander – "That wasn't what I meant and you know it."

O-O-O-O

In a show of anger and strength Kakistos picked a dead, drained body off from the ornate, Victorian dinner table and tossed it across the room. Then he slammed down with both cloven hands and broke the thick table in half. Most of his other minions were either hiding or nursing the vicious wounds they had gotten from their recent close shave with true death.

Kakistos – "Mr Trick? Who is this impudent fool who defies me?"

Trick was busy tapping on a keyboard and reading from a screen. At his master's call, he turned.

Trick – "It turns out he's called Xander Harris."

Kakistos, angrily – "I've never even heard of him before. How did he fight off so many of our numbers?"

Trick – "Well, uh, that's a little confusing. An internet contact called Orlock gave me the skinny. As far as his information is concerned, Xander Harris is supposed to be a human currently living in Sunnydale, helping the Slayer to, uh, slay vampires. This is obviously dated but it would explain how he can fight us so easily. If he was that tough when he was human then it makes sense that he's even worse now."

Kakistos growled and wanted something nice and breakable to smash.

Kakistos – "He must know of the prophecy."

Trick sighed deeply. He was really getting tired of all this prophecy business.

Trick – "So it would seem."

Kakisto – "It doesn't matter. Faith will be mine. Through her prophecy, we will rule this world, turning it into our own hell."

The other vampires in the room seemed to like this idea but few of them were in any condition for spirited cheering.

Trick, humoring his master – "Yeah. Sounds like fun, boss."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	27. 9b Problem childe

O-O-O-O

Scene – Hotel room.

Tara watched as an observer as Faith and Xander sat down on the bed together.

Faith, unsure of herself – "How do you want to do this?"

Xander – "Lean back."

And he helped her lean back, so that her shoulders lay in his lap and her face was horizontal, facing up at him. Faith wasn't comfortable with the compromising position but she tried not to show it.

Xander stroked her hair and whispered soothingly to her – "Relax. This isn't marriage. You can start whenever you want."

Faith tried to force herself to relax by letting out a lungful of unnecessary air. Then Xander held his wrist over her mouth and Faith grabbed it in her hands but did nothing with it. Instead, she seemed to be running some scenario through her head.

Tara, getting up to go – "I can go if you'd feel more comfortable."

Faith – "No. Stay."

Tara silently sat back down on her seat and kept watching.

Faith frowned and flexed her brow a little as she tried to force her game-face on. It didn't work and finally she let out a sigh mixed with a little growl and then her vampire visage snapped into place, getting a little intake of breath from Tara.

Xander, stroking her hair again – "Oh god, you're so beautiful like that."

Faith responded by pulling his wrist to her mouth. She didn't bite into it straight away. Instead, she kissed the skin and looked to him as if for approval.

Xander, nodding – "I'm ready. Do it."

Then she did it. She bit into his wrist and blood rushed into her waiting mouth as the skin burst like ripe fruit. Xander grunted a little in pain as Faith clenched down into it wrist.

Xander, gritting his teeth – "It's okay. Just keep drinking."

Faith nodded a little as she looked into his eyes but then her eyes rolled up into her skull and her fingernails cut into his arm as Faith's grasp on reality started to slip. Xander hissed in pain but that didn't stop her from drinking.

Xander – "Uh, Faith. Could you loosen your grip a little? It kinda hurts."

But Faith didn't listen. Instead, she let one of her hands go and grabbed Xander around the collar, pulling him down over her lap. Before he could get back up Faith pulled a leg out from under him and scissored them around his chest and trapped him there as she continued to bite down on his wrist.

Xander, now getting a little panicked – "Faith. What are- Stop! Stop it. You're going to drain me, you idiot!"

Xander struggled back couldn't find the strength or the leverage to get out of Faith's hold. Then something large and wooden smashed against the back of Faith's head and it dazed her long enough for Xander to free himself. He quickly stumbled off the bed and fell against the wall, looking back at Faith as she writhed on the bed. Tara stood back from the bed, still holding most of the chair she broke against Faith's back.

Instead of retaliating, Faith lay back on the bed, moaning in a far too suggestive way as pain shuddered through her, leaving her a twitching tangle of limbs. After half a minute or so, the seizures seemed to die down and Faith reached up to her face and felt her gnarled brow. Then her eyes flickered open and she looked at her two horror-stricken companions and gave them a frown.

Faith – "Xander. I thought you said this wouldn't hurt. That stung like a bitch."

Xander – "What the hell was that, Faith?"

Faith, a little dazed – "Huh? Wha was wha?"

Xander – "If it wasn't for Tara, you might have just killed me. Well, actually, you might not have. I've never heard of a vampire being drained to death but I don't think I want to find out if it's possible."

Faith, slowly getting off the bed – "Oh. I'm sorry. I just.. That was intense. Screw ecstasy. Xander, you're now my drug of choice."

Xander was just downright confused now – "Huh? What are you talking about? The only effect vampire blood has on other vampires is to instill dominance in the drinker. It's not a drug."

Tara – "Maybe it has something to do with how she's a slayer."

Xander, snapping at her – "Yeah. Obviously!"

Tara flinched back a little as Xander tried to get to his feet but failed from lack of willpower.

Xander, groaning – "Tara. Could you get me some blood? I'm running a little low."

Tara wordlessly complied, pouring some blood from a container and into a polystyrene cup, which she gave to Xander.

Xander took the cup and tilted his head back enough to drink it.

Faith – "Can I have some too, please? I'd like something to wash that down."

Tara went through the same motions and gave Faith another blood filled cup.

Faith sipped on the cup and her brow knitted together as she thought.

Faith – "Do you think that would do it? Do you think we broke Kakistos' hold over me?"

Xander – "I don't think so. Kakistos is ancient and I'm barely two years turned. But it can't hurt. Frankly, I don't know what just happened. Obviously the rules for vampires are a little different for you. For all I know, you don't even have a childe-sire connection with ol' Kakistos. Maybe he didn't turn you. Could've been Trick."

Faith – "No. The guy with the cow feet for hands. He was one who turned me. Are you sure I won't be able to fight him?"

Xander – "Well, the last Slayer who got turned couldn't fight her Sire."

Faith – "Really? What happened to her?"

Xander – "Uh. I don't know. They're both still alive as far I as know."

Faith – "Really? Oh man. That's so cool. So we could go and meet her?"

Xander sighed as he sat himself down on the bed and flopped back to lie down.

Xander – "No. We can't. Have Tara tell you why. I'm going to sleep. Night-night."

Then Xander rolled over onto his side and curled up a little, intent on falling asleep.

Faith snorted – "Damn. Why do guys always do that to me just when it's getting interesting?"

Then, to Tara's wide-eyed stare, Faith rolled up against Xander and played with the button on the front of his leather pants.

Faith – "Come on, boy. Don't you want some fun first?"

Xander, chuckling sleepily – "Someone's feeling frisky. Why don't you go play with Tara instead? I'm too tired."

Faith couldn't help but chuckle as she looked over at Tara and found the human petrified on the spot.

Faith – "How about I take you both on? I think I can do that."

Xander - "Faith, I don't have enough blood to get it up so leave me out of it. And whatever you do, be gentle with her. She's only a human."

Faith – "Don't worry. I won't break her."

Tara turned around towards the kitchen and in a flash Faith was there, standing in front of her with an unsettling toothy grin.

Tara gasped and stepped back. In another flash, Faith was by her side and picked her up into her arms. Before Tara knew what was really happening, Faith had deposited Tara on the bed next to Xander. Then Faith straddled her lap, relishing the feeling of their soft warm body pressed against her own and the earthy musk coming off the human.

But by Tara's terrified face, she wasn't as eager as Faith and when Faith realized this she let go of the blonde and jumped back off the bed.

Faith – "Oh god. Tara, sorry. I just.. I'm sorry. I need some air."

Before Tara could say anything, Faith opened the hotel door and walked out into the evening air outside. Once outside, Faith rested with both hands against the second floor railing. Since she had become a vampire, she had noticed that her emotions were running out of her control more than normal. She obviously needed to learn a little more restraint or some method of controlling them otherwise she might hurt someone.

She frowned as she thought of that. It was strange that she cared more about people now that she wasn't even one of them. Maybe she just cared about Tara? She saw herself in the shy blonde which was ridiculous really when she considered how different they were. But they were both graduates from the school of hard knocks. The fact that Faith graduated summa cum laude while Tara got a D just made Faith want to help her that much more.

Faith – "Help her? Damn. What's happening to me? Maybe I really do need some air."

Faith looked up into the night sky and spotted the full moon blossoming out from in between the clouds and a primitive part of her felt at peace with this omen. As she relaxed, her normal human face returned and Faith gasped a little, forgetting she had her vamp face on. Then she realized that she practically mauled Tara with her vampire on and probably traumatized the girl for life.

Not wanting to go back inside yet, she decided that it was a nice night for a little aimless wandering. Maybe when she got back, Tara would be in a forgiving mood.

O-O-O-O

It was hours later when Faith got back to the hotel but for Tara it felt like a lifetime.

Faith, upon seeing Tara – "Oh. You're still awake?"

Tara – "I couldn't sleep."

Faith walked over to Tara unusually shy.

Faith, looking down at the floor – "I'm sorry about before. I'm sorry I scared you."

Tara smiled and walked over to Faith – "It's okay. I just didn't know you felt that way about me."

Faith, still looking down – "Why wouldn't I? You're beautiful."

Hearing this, Tara was moved emotionally and leant in so their foreheads rested against each other. They stayed like that for a hot searing second then Tara leant in even more and their mouths brushed together. Neither of them wanted to tease but this was such a big step.

Faith, in the sexiest raspiest whisper Tara had ever heard – "I need you."

Instead of taking a passive role, Tara lifted a surprised Faith up and dropped the light girl on the bed then straddled her as Faith had done earlier. Faith just smiled and watched as Tara unclipped the cross covered choker around her throat and tossed it aside. Then Tara reached back behind herself and pulled on a little tassel on her bodysuit, which in turn pulled the zipper down her back. Once the zipper was open, Tara pulled her top half out of the bodysuit and Faith growled appreciatively.

Not content with watching anymore, Faith pulled herself up and kissed the rise and cleft of Tara's soft breasts, where Tara's under-wire bra didn't cover them. Then Tara felt a sharp prick and gasped. Faith gasped too as her gameface turned on. Shamefully, Faith turned away.

Faith – "I don't want you to see me like this. We can't do this."

Tara held her still and turned Faith's face back to her with a gentle hand.

Tara, looking Faith in her poisonous yellow eyes – "We can do this."

Faith – "But I'm a vampire."

Tara – "And I'm a demon. And I love you."

Faith's vampire visage crinkled in an inscrutable expression, giving Tara fears that she had said too much.

Faith – "I love you too."

Then they kissed passionately. A long, lip-smashing, smothering kiss. Halfway through, Tara scraped her tongue across Faith's sharp teeth enough to cause it to bleed. As she kept it in Faith's mouth, Faith suckled on her tongue, tugging on it with some deliciously wicked suction.

Finally Tara couldn't take anymore and broke off to breathe.

As Tara got her breath back, Faith whispered sweet nothings into her ear.

Faith, crying with bliss – "I never thought I would know anything like this."

Tara – "Me neither but here we are."

Faith – "I really do love you. I can't believe it but I do."

Tara – "I love you too. I've never done this before but I want to make you happy. I want to fulfill your every need."

Faith, chuckling awkwardly – "You really don't."

To this, Tara tilted her head to the side and brushed her hair away to expose her neck.

Tara – "I want to fulfill EVERY need."

Faith licked her lips and forced herself to look away.

Faith – "I-I've never bitten a human before. I don't know if I could hold back."

Tara – "I trust you."

Faith – "You do?"

Tara – "I love you. I know you won't betray me."

Faith gave in and closed her eyes as Tara pulled Faith towards her neck. Faith's fangs slid effortlessly into her skin like tiny razors and she felt her blood thud out of the two entry wounds in tune with her rapidly beating her. Faith moaned and the same moan echoed in Tara's throat and out her mouth. Instead of Faith sucking on the fresh wounds, she just stayed that way, savoring the bitter tang of Tara's blood.

As Tara relaxed to having Faith under her skin, a strange, new feeling rose from deep within her. It felt like a sun being born inside her, a small explosion growing in slow motion. Its flames rolled within her, caressing her skin from underneath. This wasn't the delirium of blood loss. The only thing she could compare it to was magic but this was a magic she had never known before. It flooded into her, filling her up with warmth and energy and life that sprung from nowhere.

Tara – "Oh Faith. I love you."

Xander – "Mm hmm. That's right."

At this Tara's her eyes snapped open and she found herself waking up with Xander spooning up behind her and his hand gently stroking her ass. Faith wasn't even there.

Tara groaned and rolled away, feeling so betrayed that was just a dream.

Tara – "Oh goddess."

Xander, pouting meanly – "Aww. And I was enjoying that. Come back to bed, sweet cheeks."

By the mischievous look in his eyes, Xander didn't have sleeping on his mind when he asked that.

Tara sighed – "Xander. What is wrong with you?"

Xander grinned widely – "But I'm wrong in the best ways, baby. I swear. Come on, tear away. Don't you want to make the dream come true?"

Tara ignored him and got off the bed to get some breakfast. She was still in her leather body suit. Obviously she had slept in it last night. She always ignored Xander's advances. She knew he was an experienced lover and parts her wanted him but she knew that he would never love her and giving herself to him wouldn't mean anything to him. She had seen him hook up with too many other demons to know exactly what sort of man he was.

Xander, rolling over to get some more sleep – "Well, I'll be here if you need me."

Tara plodded across the floor and picked up a packet of prune juice which was lying on the floor along with a bunch of other packaged food. It was times like this she wished they had stayed in that nice bed and breakfast place back in Arizona. Of course, Xander had to propose something indecent to owners daughter and get them kicked out. As she opened the prune juice and drank some of it, she looked around and frowned when she saw no sign of Faith.

Tara, to Xander – "Where's Faith?"

Xander, lifting his head off the pillows – "Huh? Oh, uh, I don't know."

Tara, a little concerned – "What do you mean?"

Xander – "She didn't come back last night. You must have scared her off. I told you not to do that."

Tara thought about this a little more and the more she thought, the less she liked it.

Tara – "Xander. Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

Xander – "Beee-cause I was asleep. Relax. She probably just got caught out when the sun rose and she's waiting for it to fall back down."

Tara – "But what if she needs our help?"

Xander – "I wouldn't worry. This is her home town and Faith's tough enough for both of us."

Tara – "I hope you're right."

Xander – "I know I'm right. Now stop being silly and come back to bed. I know you're still tired. We can find Faith later."

Tara – "Fine. But keep your hands to yourself this time."

Xander – "I make no promises."

O-O-O-O

Faith walked purposely into an abandoned underground complex, flanked on both sides by an entourage of vampires. When she reached the middle of a large room, she stopped curtly in front of Kakistos and the rest of his gang of vampire fiends.

Kakistos smiled and a cold shudder of revulsion ran through her. Every fiber of her being was telling her to run and she desperately wanted to but some unseen force was stopping her.

Kakistos leant closer and sniffed a little in her direction. Then he floored her with a backhand.

Kakistos, with anger clear in his voice – "Get up!"

Faith wordlessly got up and he grabbed her by the throat.

Kakistos – "You are the most impudent childe I have ever had. I gave you my dark gift and you show no loyalty at all. I tortured you, I gave you my seed, I gorged you on my precious blood and yet, you still rebel. Why?"

Faith didn't reply. She just glared at him.

Faith – "What have you done to me? Why can't I fight you?"

At this question, Kakistos' anger fell away and was replaced with a sadistic streak.

Kakistos – "I got tired of trying to control you so I brought in a specialist to help."

He motioned towards a young black female vampire who was wearing a very out of place catholic school girl uniform.

Trick – "She's a third generation necromancer. You wouldn't believe the trouble we went through to get turn her."

Faith – "So she what? Did a spell on me?"

Kakistos – "A spell to make you obey my every word."

Faith – "Oh crap. What.. Why are you doing this to me? Why don't you just kill me?"

Kakistos, with a toothy grin – "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Well, I did kill you once before when you begged for it but I'll keep you alive from now on."

Faith, with tears rolling down her strangely passive face – "Just tell me why."

Kakistos considered the question for a few moments.

Kakistos – "I don't see why I can't tell you. There's a prophecy about you. Whoever controls you will be invincible. By my command, you'll destroy whole armies for me. The power you wield will make the gods themselves tremble and shake the worlds to their very core. Because you are the most beloved, the destined hand of twilight, stronger than any force of good or of evil that has ever existed before."

Faith – "Uh. I don't feel that invincible. Are you sure you've got the right girl?"

Kakistos grunted in another vampire's direction and he took a scroll off a desk. The minion handed it to Kakistos who unrolled it to show a woodcutting of a portrait that looked exactly like Faith when she smiled. It captured so many of her oddball features. It had her sleepy hooded eyes that sparkled with impish intent, her oddly chiseled nose, the pudgy cheeks which dimpled when she smiled and that even that weird but oddly kissable cleft on her bottom lip.

There was no mistake. It was a picture of her but drawn centuries ago.

Faith – "I .. I don't get it. It's a prophecy? About me!"

Trick, Kakistos' right hand man – "That's right. I was a little skeptical at first too. Hey, boss. You should let her read it."

Trick nudged Faith in the ribs with an elbow – "You'll like it."

Faith – "Why would I like it? I don't really like crushing armies under my feet."

Kakistos – "The prophet who made this woodcut, wrote about you in poetic verse as one might write love letters. She was infatuated with you."

Despite her grim situation, Faith blinked at Kakistos.

Faith – "Huh? I really don't get this. Some chick drew my face on a piece of paper and wrote me love letters but.. how long ago was this?"

Kakistos – "Almost two millennia ago.'

Faith – "This is insane."

Kakistos, grinning widely – "Yes. It is. Come with me now. It's time to consummate your return to grace."

Faith knew what he meant by that but didn't show any fear.

Faith, following him into the bedroom – "Oh. Okay. Fine. But can I watch TV while you do it? You bore me."

The look on Kakistos' face made Faith laugh without restraint. Kakistos roared and slugged her in the face and she went down without any way to defend herself. Then he kicked her in the gut and once more in the face.

Kakistos – "You insolent whore! I will teach you respect."

Faith, smiling evilly at him from the floor – "I've had better teachers than you. Do your worst."

Kakistos – "I always do my worst. You'll find that out soon enough."

O-O-O-O

Half a sunny day later and the sun was setting under the cityscape on the horizon.

Xander and Tara were sitting in the front seats of the "mystery machine" and waiting for something to happen.

Neither of them said anything as Xander took a prescription bottle out of his pocket, twisted open the lid and tapped two pills out into the palm of his gloved hand. He knocked back the pills and put the bottle away in one of his pockets.

Tara had never gotten the nerve to ask him exactly what those pills were.

Xander – "And look. Here come our little friends."

Tara stopped staring at her shoes and looked up to the hotel, to where a sizeable horde of vampires were scaling the stairs up to their hotel room.

Xander to Tara – "I guess you were right. Faith really is in trouble."

The vampires broke through the flimsy hotel room's front door and poured into the room, just as Xander pressed the button on the remote detonator in his hands. A number of shaped explosions tore the front wall off their hotel room and tore straight through the vampires too. Chunks of wall and vampire parts flew over the railing and rained down on the car park below.

Before the smoke had even cleared, Xander gunned the gas and the van peeled out of its parking space into the dust clouds.

There were several loud thuds as he drove over some rubble and one or two vampires on the way out.

Tara – "Uh. Where are we going?"

Xander – "To save Faith. Again."

Tara – "Oh. Oh! But it's not daytime anymore. You told me never to attack a nest at night."

Xander – "It won't be much of a nest now. Not with all those minions writhing in pain back there."

O-O-O-O

Faith sighed with boredom as she relaxed and watched the news. She was also buck naked and lying on her stomach, on a bed of plush cushions. The truth was Faith didn't want to watch the news but Kakistos was the boss so there was nothing she could do about it.

To her, it was pathetic. Not that she was pathetic, more like the entire situation was pathetic. Kakistos, yeah, pathetic too. When he was first going to rape her again, she prepared herself to go to that far away place she visited when the horror got too much but then she found that she didn't really need to. Maybe it was a vampire thing or maybe she had just gotten far too jaded for her own good but it didn't really matter what Kakistos did to her, she didn't care. As far as the actual raping went, it was the most sexless affair she had ever been forced to stay awake for. Kakistos got the mechanics right. It was straight tab-A, slot B but there was no terror or pain or emotional torment to it. It was all just a slight discomfort. Looking at his ugly face while he performed was probably the worst part.

He promised to whip her later, which Faith guessed might be interesting. She'd never been whipped during the act before.

Outside their little inner sanctum, the "manager's office", a few vampires were making repairs to the outer nest. They were taking advantage of the setting sun to patch up the giant wooden slat doors where Tara had driven their black van through when Xander first rescued her.

Faith frowned as she realized that this time, there wouldn't be anyone to rescue her. She would be trapped in this place as that sicko's plaything for the rest of her life.

Then BAM! the front door exploded as a van smashed through it, bowling over two of the vampires who were helping to repair it.

BOK! BOK! went Xander's big, shiny, long-nosed pistol as it fired two magnum loaded slugs into two other vampires, knocking them off their feet.

Kakistos growled and tossed some clothes to Faith – "Get dressed. Meet us downstairs."

Kakistos plodded down the stairs and growled under his breath as Xander kept firing round after round into his minions. Eventually, Xander ran out of ammo or ran out of volunteer targets.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, Kakistos found that Xander was just reloading, casually sliding a new magazine into his pistol as no one was challenging him.

Upon seeing Kakistos, he just smiled.

Xander – "Hey. You must be Kakistos."

Kakistos, with a similar smile – "And you must be Xander Harris. Faith has told us so much about you."

Xander – "Yeah. I gathered as much. You know broads. They're all yap-yap-yap."

Kakistos – "But surely, you don't think you can beat me with that pitiful device."

Xander shook his head and holstered his pistol. Then he readied the combat shotgun that was hung around him with a strap.

Xander – "You're what I brought this for."

Kakistos suddenly wasn't so keen to face the young vampire. That shotgun looked like it would hurt far too much.

Xander – "That's right, Kakistos. I'm here for two reasons. Kicking ass and chewing bubblegum. Lucky for you, I can do both at the same time."

Before Xander even got to fire it, Faith fell out of the apparent sky and wrenched the shotgun from his hands and tossed it aside.

Instead of attacking him, she just stood there like a statue.

Xander – "Faith? What are you doing?"

Faith – "Xander. Run. Get out of here."

Kakistos – "Ahh, my favourite daughter. Thank you, Faith. Now beat this annoying gnat to a pulp."

Xander managed to look at Kakistos oddly for a split second before Faith's fist slammed into his chest. The power punch broke ribs and sent him skidding across the floor, into a wall.

Xander stared in horror as Faith calmly and without emotion, walked up to him and kicked in him the gut, causing him to keel over again. Xander tried to get back up yet again and Faith helped him up then punched him in the gut yet again.

Kakistos, calling out – "Stop! Hold him there."

Faith stopped and looked back to where Kakistos was being advised upon by the young teenage vampire who was the same one who cast the control spell on Faith.

Kakistos – "Have him kneel."

Faith kicked Xander in the back of the legs and Xander fell to his knees. As she did, the few vampires in the room came out of hiding. A few wounded ones picked themselves off the floor.

Faith, quietly – "I'm sorry, Xander. I have to do everything that prick says. They did a spell on me."

Kakistos, with the necromancer girl by his side – "Kylie here gave me a good idea. Instead of killing you, we'll turn you."

Xander, groaning – "I'm already a vampire."

Kylie, the necromancer – "Yes. He knows. That wasn't what he meant. You see, I'm a necromancer. I can control you since you're already dead."

Kylie walked up to Xander and held his head in her hands as Faith kept him still.

"Let him go."

All eyes turned towards the new voice and found Tara standing by the entrance with the shotgun Xander had lost earlier.

Xander – "Tara! Get the hell out of here!"

Tara, scared out of her mind – "Not without you."

Kakistos chuckled meanly – "Oh. How quaint. Your pet wants to save you."

Tara pulled the trigger and the shotgun roared, hitting nothing and knocking her over with the recoil.

Kylie, letting go of Xander – "I like her. She's got spirit. We should make her one of ours."

Xander – "Tara! Run, dammit! Run!"

Tara finally turned to run but wasn't fast enough and before she knew it she was grabbed around the arms by two eager vampires.

Kakistos – "Kylie. You can have this one. Do it slowly. Make a show for us."

Kylie smiled widely as her game face came on.

Kylie, as she approached Tara – "As you wish, my master."

She gently brushed the hair away from Tara's neck and leant into her neck, not biting her but licking a trail up her neck and up, over her cheek.

Kylie, with a mean smile – "I want you to know that I'm going to enjoy this."

Tara – "Sh-sh-Shuntaka Muwan Hayasha."

Kylie blinked at Tara and then laughed.

Kylie – "Oh. You know magic! This is great. I'll turn you and then we can do magic together."

Tara looked over to Xander and Faith, frowning.

Kylie followed Tara's eyes and laughed again.

Kylie – "Oh pluh-eeze. You'll have to do a little more than the simplest cancellation spell to defeat my –OOF!"

Kylie went down suddenly as Xander elbowed her in her ear. He kept up his running momentum and decked the vampire holding Tara's right arm. Faith followed him up and hit the one of Tara's left.

Xander, chuckling – "Tara. That was stupid and thanks a lot."

It really wasn't the time for humour and Xander paid for it by getting grabbed around the collar by Kakistos and slammed head first through the grille of the mystery machine.

Faith came to Xander's aid with a flying kick that did little more than push Kakistos back a little.

Kakistos – "You can't fight me! My blood runs through your veins."

Faith - "I think it's time my veins saw other people."

At this, Kakistos lunged at her with a wide haymaker and she rushed forward to meet it. She grabbed his swinging arm as it collided into her side and pushed it down as she brought her knee up, hitting him the gut. As he bent over, she reached over his back and pulled on his leather jacket, bunching it up over the master vampire's head. As Kakistos struggled to understand the unorthodox attack, Faith kept kneeing him in the face, through his jacket.

Meanwhile, Xander pulled his head out of the grille and found himself rushed at by vampires.

BOOM! went the shotgun Tara had picked up again and something red, wet and sticky flew out of one of attacking vampires.

Xander used the distraction to pull out his oversized pistol and blast away at the last few standing vampires. One he got in the neck, dusting them. The other four turned and ran, not wanting to be on the receiving end of either bullet or shot.

Xander – "Hah. Pussies."

Then Faith fell by his feet and he looked over to find Kakistos with an extremely pissed off look on his face. Xander levelled his pistol at the monstrous vampire and fired the last three rounds of the magazine. Each one whacked against the master but apparently had very little effect other than pissing him off.

Kakistos took the time to pull a bullet out that had been lodged in the leather like skin of his neck. Xander was most troubled to find that it didn't even draw blood.

Xander – "Ahhh donkey poo."

Their situation got even worse when Kylie the necromancer got back up in front of Kaksistos. Xander obviously didn't hit her hard enough.

Kylie took a look back at them and growled.

Kylie – "Xander. Break that shotgun in half."

Tara gasped when Xander took the shotgun from her hands and broke it over his knee.

Xander, wincing in pain – "Ow! Ow crap! That hurt!"

Tara, trying hard to remember the words again – "Shun.. shuntaka Muwan Hayasha."

Kylie – "It won't work this time, witch. I'm ready for you. Isn't that right, Faith?"

Faith, robotically getting up off the floor – "Yes. Ahh shit."

Tara took in a deep breath with her eyes closed. Then her eyes snapped open and she held out an open palm towards the other witch.

Tara – "Enthalten!"

The necromancer was knocked off her feet by some unseen force. She fell back, into Kakistos' arms. Her master tossed her back onto her feet. Tara looked at her hand, a little amazed at how much power just came out of it and a little confused at how she just cast the wrong spell.

Kakistos – "Kylie. Kill this witch."

Kylie – "Gladly."

The necromancer growled and her yellow vampire eyes turned pitch black, as if they were twin suns being eclipsed.

Kylie, as she slowly levitated off the ground – "Now you will see true power."

Xander, with a very worried look – "I didn't know necromancers could do that."

Faith, struggling a little – "Oh crap. Now we can't move again. This sucks dog balls."

Kylie – "Excipio lucius lux!"

An unseen noose tightened around Tara's neck and slowly lifted the quickly suffocating blonde off the floor.

Xander looked back at Tara and sighed – "This isn't how I expected to die. I wanted to die in Cleveland."

Faith – "Tara. Fight it! Do something!"

Tara kept struggling and as her consciousness waned, a small flicker of sky blue light sparkled in her dying eyes. Xander tilted his head curiously, having noticed this and wondered its significance.

Then a giant, white hot lightning arc blasted between Tara's and the necromancers eyes. The end result was the necromancer's head literally exploding so that there was nothing left from the shoulders upwards.

Tara fell to the ground with a thump while the vampire flashed into dust before it even hit the ground.

Faith, in shock – "What the fuck was that?"

Xander, a little shocked as well – "Magic."

Kakistos, enraged yet again – "Agh! It doesn't matter. You will fall by my hand and I will find new means to control the Slayer."

Faith turned to him and growled as her game face turned on.

Faith – "No one is ever putting me back in a cage. Not you. Not anyone."

Kakistos rushed forward with yet another haymaker and Faith rushed forward as well. Their bodies slapped together and they span into a roll. At the end of the roll, Faith sank her teeth into Kakistos' neck.

Kakistos tried to push her off in confusion but found that he couldn't. For all his strength and power, her grip was stronger. No, it was getting stronger!

Kakistos cried out in panic and those cries soon turned to whimpers as his struggles gave way to numb paralysis.

Kakistos, mumbling – "You can't.. do this."

Then his ancient eyelids creaked closed and whatever life he once held was gone.

Faith's head snapped back and she roared a glorious, victorious, thrilling cry, as if she was offering this kill those ancient gods that lived in the clouds and on high peaks.

Beneath her, Kakistos' skin deflated, sinking onto his bones for a few seconds before his entire form turned into harmless, formless ash.

Tara and Xander watched Faith, half scared and half captivated by the display.

Eventually, Faith picked herself up and looked over at her friends with a smile as her gameface faded away.

Faith, mussing her hair a little – "Wow. That was a rush. That was some crazy fight, huh."

Xander – "Darn tootin'. Hey, Faith. Where did you learn the Inglewood jack?"

Faith, smoothly - "Inglewood, of course."

Xander chuckled – "Hey. I don't suppose your shoulder is dislocated?"

Faith frowned – "Uh. No. Why?"

Xander, as he rested against the mystery machine – "Heh. I'll tell you later. You'll get a kick out of it, I'm sure."

Faith looked around and frowned some more when there were no more vampires to fight.

Faith – "So you guys do this all the time?"

Xander – "Normally we use wooden stakes. It makes it easier."

Faith – "Uh, Tara. Are you okay?"

Tara didn't look very satisfied with the end result of this fight. In fact, she looked like it was still going on.

Faith, moving towards Tara – "Hey, Tar. Everything's okay. We beat the bad guys. We beat them good! You can relax."

Tara, grimly – "It's not over."

Faith, frowning – "Damn. You're really rattled, aren't you? It must have been that lightning bolt you did."

Tara grabbed Faith and pulled her close. Faith was a little confused why but she didn't resist.

Tara, whispering into Faith's ear – "Faith. Xander doesn't have that spell on him anymore."

Faith, confused – "That spell?"

Tara, whispering desperately – "That spell. The one that keeps him from doing evil."

Xander stretched his back a little and groaned as he worked some kinks out.

Xander – "I knew ol' Khaki was tough but not THAT tough. Holy fricken cow. How the heck did you kill him last time around?"

Faith – "Huh?"

Xander – "Oh, uh, you killed Kakistos the last time around too."

Faith blinked – "Really?"

Xander – "Yeah. Kudos."

Faith, walking up to him with an icy smile – "Thanks."

Xander looked at her oddly, wondering where he had seen that look on her face before. Then it hit him. It was that time she was walking around with Angel and Angel knocked him out.

Then Faith hit him literally, knocking him out completely.

O-O-O-O

Xander stirred a little and found himself tied up with a heavy weight resting on his chest. This wasn't actually an uncommon occurrence for Xander but that splitting headache wasn't from alcohol. No, this was definitely post-knocked out splitting headache. He looked around and found Faith sitting on his chest and he was lying on the mattress in the mystery machine. By the engine sounds and the sense of motion, he could tell they were on the road.

Xander, groaning – "Oh. Okay. What's going on? Faith? Did you hit me?"

Faith – "Uh. Yeah. Sorry about that man."

Xander, a little sleepily – "Is okay but ask me next time. Umm, why am I tied up?"

Tara, from the drivers seat – "Don't tell him."

Faith – "Yeah. I can't tell you."

Xander – "What? Why not?"

Faith – "Uh, I just can't. So shut up and lie there."

Xander frowned – "Why?"

Faith, suggestively – "Because if you play nice, I'll give you a present."

Faith finished off the sentence with a bright smile.

Faith – "Can you guess what it is?"

Xander – "Ahh, yeah. I've got some ideas but what's going on?"

Tara – "Xander. If you try to struggle or get free then Faith will just knock you out again."

Xander – "Okay. What the hell is going on here? Faith? Are you evil now?"

Faith, sighing – "No. I'm not evil. I thought for a second that maybe I was. But hey, it was just indigestion."

Xander – "So what's going on?"

Faith – "We can't tell you."

Xander – "Why not?"

Faith – "I said we can't tell you! So stop asking."

Xander – "Okay. Then where are we going?"

Faith, to Tara – "Can we tell him that?"

Tara – "Yes. We can tell him that."

Faith, grinning like an idiot – "We're going to Sunnydale."

Xander's eyes shot wide open – "We're WHAT! No, we are not going to Sunnydale! Tara. Turn this van around."

Tara – "I'm sorry Xander. But we have to go there."

Xander – "What. Why? Do you know what will happen if I'm seen in Sunnydale? Those watchers will torture me to death. And then they'll kill me a little more."

Faith – "Relax, X. We'll be careful not to run into any watcher types. We're just going to meet your old friend. Willow's her name, isn't it?"

Xander – "Willow? But what would you want her for unless.. oh crap. Her control spell, it's not working anymore! Quick, get off. I wanna.. umm.. you're not going to get off, are you?"

Faith shook her head.

Xander – "Well this sucks."

Tara – "See. I told you he was evil."

Faith – "Point to the blonde."

Xander – "So what do you think you're going to do? Sit on me for the three days it's going to take to drive to the 'Dale?"

Faith – "Yup."

Xander sighed.

Xander – "How about you let me sit up a little. Then we can play eye-spy?"

Faith – "Nope."

Xander – "A license plate game?"

Faith – "Hell no."

Xander – "The road kill game?"

Faith – "I'm not letting you up."

Xander – "So what are we going to do until then?"

Tara – "We could tell stories."

Faith, trying to sound upbeat about that – "Yeah. We could tell stories."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	28. 10a Code of the road

O-O-O-O

Tara looked on the dashboard clock and did some simple arithmetic. She came to the conclusion that they were going to drive another 49 hours until they reached Sunnydale.

Xander – "Favorite Stanley Kubrick movie?"

Tara, from the driver's seat – "His is Apocalypse now."

Faith – "I've always been partial to the Shining."

Xander was still strapped down on the mattress in the black panel van and Faith was still sitting on his chest, playing babysitter.

Tara – "Me too."

Faith – "Which is funny, considering how it's even older than I am."

Tara – "Hey. Me too! I mean the older part."

Faith, smirking – "I get it."

O-O-O-O

34 hours until Sunnydale.

Xander – "Faith. Truth or dare."

Faith - "Truth. Since Dare is kinda impossible with me sitting on you."

Xander chuckled – "Actually, I can think of one dare we both would enjoy. You wouldn't even have to move than much. Just nudge down a little."

Faith, rolling her eyes – "Ask your question."

Xander – "You like Tara, don't you?"

Faith – "Yeah. So?"

Xander – "No. I mean you LIKE her."

Faith – "Yeah. So?"

Xander – "I mean that you'd like to have sex with her."

Faith – "Yeah. So?"

The van swerved a little to avoid the edge of the road.

Faith, smirking – "Everything okay up there, cutie?"

Tara coughed a little to clear her throat in response.

Xander – "Hey Tara. You know you're gay, right?"

Faith – "She is? Awesome. I'll have me a piece of that."

Tara – "I'm not gay! He's evil and blurting out.. evil stuff."

Faith – "Oh yeah. Bad Xander."

Faith disciplined him by reaching back and slapping him hard on hip but this just made Xander squirm a little and grin.

Xander - "Okay. Tara's turn. Tara, truth or dare."

Tara – "Play your own games."

Xander – "Aww. Come on, Tear. We're playing nice. We want you to play too. How about you ask us a question. Any question you want and we have to answer."

Tara – "Any question?"

Faith – "Any question."

Tara thought about it for a while before asking.

Tara – "I've always wondered… what's it like to die?"

Xander and Faith were both a little stumped at this.

Faith – "I don't really remember it that much."

Xander – "I can answer this one. Hey, Tara, did you know the French call orgasms la petite mort? Translated it means the little death. Well, real death is kinda like that except a lot bigger."

Tara, quietly – "Oh."

Xander – "You do know what an orgasm feels like, don't you?"

Tara mumbled something even Xander's enhanced hearing couldn't quite grasp.

Faith, smirking – "Stop teasing her. That's my fun."

Xander, smirking as well – "We can share baby. Okay, truth or dare?"

Faith looked down at Xander for a second and couldn't help but smile a little.

Faith – "You know, this time I think I'll try dare."

Xander – "You know what I want."

Faith bit her bottom lip as she smiled.

Faith – "Mmm hmm. I know what you want. But you're not going to get it until we get you fixed up."

Xander – "When did you become such a tease?"

Faith – "I just don't want to give you a chance to do anything crazy. I don't want to hurt you... much."

Xander – "But come on. I've had you sitting on me all day. There's only so much Faith a man can take before he needs some satisfaction."

Tara, curiously – "What are you two talking about?"

Faith – "Nothing Tara. Just keep your eyes on the road. Hey, could you stop at the next service station? I just want to stretch my legs a little."

O-O-O-O

Scene – 33 and a half hours until Sunnydale.

Tara – "I can't believe you just did that!"

Faith – "Oh come on. We did it while you were using that rest room."

Tara – "Yeah. I get that. But how did you do it so fast? I was only in there for a few minutes."

Faith chuckled – "Well, we didn't have sex. I just blew him off."

Tara – "Oh."

Faith – "It's funny. I used to hate doing that when I was human but now.. hmm. It was kinda tasty."

Xander – "Thanks. No one's ever said that about me before."

Faith – "Of course, now you owe me."

Xander – "How about we wait until the next pit stop."

Faith – "Yeah, okay. I'll just work myself up until then."

O-O-O-O

Scene – 27 hours until Sunnydale.

Faith – "Scariest sound?"

Xander – "A volley of arrows"

Faith blinked, not expecting that. It was something she had only seen in movies.

Faith – "Arrows make a sound?"

Xander – "Not much but you can hear a volley of arrows just before they hit. It's an almost inaudible hissing sound. After the first time living through one, there's not much scarier."

Faith – "Okay. Scariest place?"

Xander – "That one's easy. There was this graveyard in Malaysia. You know how most graves are just chunks of stone? Not in this graveyard. Families stick photographs of their buried on all of the gravestones. And the graves weren't all in orderly aisles either. They were squished together and erected on weird angles, making it a lot more human somehow. The effect was that everywhere you turned you had photographs of the dead staring in your direction. It was spooky, even for me, a vampire!"

Faith – "Sounds it. Stinkiest smell?"

Xander – "Heh. This one's got a story behind it. I won't go into the specifics but me and some friends spent a good portion of a day digging up this coffin. When we finally opened it what we found inside was two suffocated stench demons."

Tara – "That must've been ripe."

Xander could feel the wince in her voice.

Faith – "Stench demon?"

Xander – "Consider yourself lucky that you've never met one. They've got a real name but everyone just calls them stench demons. It saves time. They smell so bad they even can't stand themselves. They reek when they're alive but after they die... Well, let's just say you don't dare kill them."

Faith – "So they're like the skunks of the demon world?"

Xander – "Pretty much. And I'm proud to say that I was the only one in our group who didn't throw up when that coffin was opened."

Faith – "So how did these stench demons get in that coffin?"

Xander - "It turned out the local big bad had already exhumed the coffin a month before. He figured we would follow in his footsteps so he left us a gift."

Faith, chuckling – "Nice."

O-O-O-O

Scene – 16 hours until Sunnydale.

Xander, having just finished a long, complicated story – "And that was yet another thrilling instalment of the vampire chronicles."

Faith, a little confused – "So this Frankenstein monster –"

Xander – "Adam."

Faith - "Yeah, this Adam guy, he had a disk drive installed into his chest?"

Xander nodded slightly, his movement restricted by the leather strap around his neck.

Faith – "Damn. That's kinda stupid."

Xander – "I know. And he had no CD rom either. I hate to think how long it took to install windows on 3 and half inch disks."

O-O-O-O

Scene – 12 hours until Sunnydale.

The van was quiet. No one had said anything for at least fifteen minutes and Xander was really getting bored.

Xander – "You know what I really regret? I'm come from an apocalyptic future, sent back in time to save the world but I still haven't found a way to slip a Sarah Conner joke into conversation yet. It's really bugging me."

Faith, nodding a little – "Mmm."

Then the van went back to the boring quiet it had been held in just a few seconds before and Xander sighed.

O-O-O-O

Scene - 3 hours until Sunnydale.

Faith took over driving for a few hours and Tara took up her position, sitting on top of Xander to keep him from getting free. They had managed to drive their way into California and now it was only a few more hours until they were home free. By the way they had timed it they would arrive around ten PM, well after the sun had set.

Tara – "Xander. Truth or dare?"

Xander, with a sigh – "Truth."

Tara – "Umm. I wanted to know. How did you get .. your eye.."

Xander – "It was poked out by a priest. He stuck his thumb in it."

Faith – "Ouch. What did you do to get that done?"

Xander – "Huh? Oh. He was an evil priest."

Faith – "Yeah, right. Evil preacher. Pull the other one. It's got bells on it."

Xander – "I don't even think he was clergy at all. He just wore their clothes."

Tara, cautiously – "Have you ever thought getting a glass eye?"

Xander - "I thought about it once. Then I thought about what would happen if it broke in the middle of a fight and decided never to think about it again."

Faith – "Good point, X. My turn! T, truth or dare?"

Tara – "Truth."

Faith – "That magic stuff you do, is that easy?"

Tara – "M-muh-magic isn't supposed to be easy."

Faith – "Yeah? But you like did that lightning bolt and stuff. It didn't look too hard. Think I could learn that off you? That would be so wicked!"

Tara, tilting her head down so her hair shielded her face – "I-I don't know how I did that. It must have been my demon half."

Xander groaned – "Tara. How many times do I have to tell you? You don't have a demon half. That was just something your Dad made up so he could keep you under his thumb while you do the household chores."

Faith – "Really? Damn. And I thought my parents were.. I'll just shut up now."

Tara, to Xander – "Then-then how would you eh-explain wh-what I did? Humans aren't meant to wield that sort of power."

Xander – "I-uh.. I don't really know. But it's not like humans CANT wield that sort of power. I've seen people throw lightning around before. Although I've never seen it that strong before. You took that girls head off. That was awesome!"

Tara – "You're not helping."

Xander – "You're right. I'm not. Look, I don't know much about this stuff. I'm not a man-witch. But I know that you weren't that powerful the last time around and I admit that's curious. But I do know that you're one hundred percent human and a really delicious one at that. If I wasn't tied down, I'd tear those clothes off you and suck all that yummy human blood straight out of that sweet sweet ass. If you were even a little bit demon then I wouldn't be so hungry for you. Would I?"

Faith, chuckling – "Oh stop it. You're going to make her blush."

Xander, chuckling too – "Make her blush? She's been doing that ever since she started sitting on me. I think she likes it."

Faith – "My turn. Xander, truth or dare?"

Xander – "It's not your turn. It's Tara's."

Faith – "Shut up. I'm driving. You want me to pull this crate over?"

Tara, shyly – "I don't need a turn. Let her go."

Xander – "Fine, Faith. Umm. Truth?"

Faith – "Oh cool. I muscled in a free turn! Now I don't know what to ask. Ummm. I know. Tell me something I don't know."

Xander – "What? Anything?"

Faith – "Yeah."

Xander – "Umm. Okay. I've got one. You know how you thought you were only kidnapped by those vampires for a week or so?"

Faith – "Yeah."

Xander – "It's actually been about almost three months."

Faith didn't answer straight away and when she did, it was with skepticism.

Faith – "Yeah, right."

Tara – "No. He's telling the truth."

Faith – "But it didn't feel even like a month had gone by let alone three."

Xander – "In times of great stress the mind will often blank out memories. Although, that only happened to me when I was human. Actually, it's probably the thing I miss most about being human."

Faith – "Are you sure?"

Xander – "Yeah. I'm sure. Now it's my turn. Isn't it? Or do you want another?"

Faith, with a haughty British accent – "No. I will allow you to proceed."

Xander – "Thank you. And this one I'm going to direct to Tara. Dare or dare?"

Tara – "Uh.. huh?"

Xander – "You heard me. Dare or dare?"

Tara – "Dare?"

Xander – "You chose dare? Well, okay then. You know what to do."

Tara frowned, not knowing what to do.

Faith – "Its okay, Tara. I won't watch. Go to town. You look like you need a good lay."

Tara – "You want me to.. No. I'm not doing that!"

Xander – "You can blindfold me if that would make it easier. Or blindfold yourself."

Tara – "But.. I've never.."

Faith – "Aww. It's her first time. Don't worry Tara. Everyone's bad the first time they have sex. Except me. I was great!"

Xander – "And it's not wrong if the vampire loves you."

Tara – "I'm not doing that."

Faith, chuckling – "I'm sure he'll return the favor once we get him gooded up again. You know, tying you down and giving you it good."

Tara – "No! I'm not doing anything to him while he's tied down. That's just wrong."

Xander, looking at her oddly – "But .. No it's not. It really isn't. It's a beautiful thing."

Faith – "Actually, it kind of is wrong. You're a freak, Xander."

Xander – "Thank you. I do try."

Faith – "But Tara, if you want to do anything to him, I don't mind. I won't watch either. I promise. Unless you want me to watch. That works too."

Tara shook her head and sighed deeply – "I'm not doing anything so stop pushing me."

Faith – "Oh uh. Sorry. I didn't want to pressure you into anything. I just thought you might want to."

Xander – "Yeah. What she said. Now get naked and ride my stallion."

Faith, chuckling – "More like a pony. One of those small half-assed ones."

Tara, getting distraught – "I don't want to know this stuff. Just stop talking. Please!"

While they were arguing, one of the tires blew out and Faith swerved the wheel to control the van as it lurched. But she couldn't get control back and the van crashed onto its side, skidding along the desert road and slipped over the edge of a cliff.

Faith – "OSSSHHHIAT!"

O-O-O-O

An undeterminable amount of time later.

Faith moaned and twisted her body a little so that she wasn't sitting on her head. As she turned, her back end fell down and landed on something soft. As her head cleared, she realized it was Tara.

Faith, snapping awake – "Oh shit! Tara! Wake up."

Faith shook the bloodied blonde a little but got no response. She put a finger to their neck and felt a sluggish heartbeat so she obviously wasn't dead, just unconscious. That cliff must have looked bigger on the way down. But who does that? Just leave cliff edges lying around where people can fall off them like that?

Then Faith noticed a distinct lack of Xander and the offensive smell of aromatic vapors.

Faith – "Gas. Shit! shit! shit!"

Seeing nothing else for it, she dragged Tara to the back doors and kept dragging her out into light of the setting sun.

Faith didn't realize the sun was still up a little until she smelt the smoke coming off her hair. She turned towards the horizon and fell back in pain as the burning light hit her eyes.

With her eyes closed, she stumbled back towards the cover of the van and left Tara out of reach.

She was still blinded when a tranquilizer dart thudded into her arm.

Faith, mumbling as she fell asleep – "Wha fuffer?"

O-O-O-O

Faith woke once again to the feeling of her mouth full of cotton wool. She tried to spit it out but was just make believe numbness.

She groaned and wondered if vampires could get permanent brain damage like normal people. If she could, she'd have to cut back on getting knocked out all the time.

Before she had even opened her eyes, she could tell that she was locked in place. But she wasn't in the mystery machine and she wasn't lying down. Instead, she was sitting in a wooden chair with heavy metal shackles built into it.

Faith opened her eyes to find herself confronted with what her mind told her were librarians and guns for hire.

Faith – "Huh? Who the hell are you guys?"

Robson walked forward and gave her a slight smile – "We are representatives for the watcher's council."

Faith – "The.. Oh. I've heard of you."

Robson wasn't prepared for that.

Robson – "You have?"

Faith – "Yeah. I have.. Hey! It was you guys who shot me, weren't you? Don't tell me. You're the reason my tire blew out. But did you have to do it right there? So we'd fall off the cliff?"

Robson, sounding slightly guilty - "It was a very small cliff."

Faith growled and struggled against her restraints – "You assholes! You could've killed us! What were you thinking!"

Robson – "We know what you are. There was very little chance of you dying from an automobile accident."

Faith, distraught – "Yeah but.. Shit. Hey, did you guys find a blonde girl?"

Robson – "We found the human you were carrying. We have her in stable condition."

Faith – "What about the other vampire?"

Robson looked over to one of the councils mercenaries. The mercenary frowned and shook his head.

Faith – "You retards! You almost killed Tara and you let Xander get free. I can't believe this shit. You just don't go around doing stuff like that. How did you even know I was in that van?"

Robson – "The watchers council has been keeping tabs on you for some time now. But until you escaped from Kakistos, we haven't had the means to capture you."

Faith – "Whoa. You knew I was with Kakistos? But you didn't do ANYTHING? You guys suck."

Robson – "What could we do? No human could hope to even compete against that monster, particularly while working with a Slayer turned. So we waited until the right time to strike."

Faith – "Oh come on! Kakistos wasn't that tough. There's like twenty of you here. You could've taken him."

Robson – "By the way you're talking about him Kakistos is deceased?"

Faith – "Dusted."

Robson considered this and sighed – "Well, we shall verify this when the other girl wakes up. About this other vampire. You called him Xander? As in Xander Harris?"

Faith – "Yes! That's right. Tara accidentally removed his goody-goody spell so we were taking him back to Willow to see if she put a new one on him. It would have gone without a hitch if it wasn't for you and.. you putting a hitch in. Hey, can you let me out of this chair? I'm not evil like other vampires, okay?"

Robson – "Be that as it may, we will wait until this Tear-rah wakes up and we will get her description of events."

Faith – "Didn't you hear me? Xander's loose on he's probably on a rampage right now. You'll need my help to stop him."

Robson frowned and considered this.

Robson – "I'm sorry but I'm afraid I can't take the very high risk of a rabid vampire running amok. You will stay in our custody and we will take capture Xander Harris for ourselves. Don't worry about food. We shall bring you some blood shortly."

Robson turned his back on the Slayer and walked away to phone a few people. Several of the other watchers turned and walked off with him, leaving Faith with a contingent of four mercenaries to baby-sit her.

Faith – "Well. He wasn't a help."

She turned and looked up at the closet mercenary. Her stomach grumbled a little but she ignored it. She would eat AFTER she got Xander under lock and key. She looked them over, noting their guns and stun grenades and the shine of their boots. It was all window dressing to her and she took note that only one of them had that dull glint of battle experience in his eye.

Faith, as if telling a joke – "Hey. Did you guys ever hear the one about the Slayer chained to the wooden chair?"

The mercenaries frowned and before they thought too much about it, Faith broke her way out of the chair and clobbered two of them with one punch. By the time the other two had even thought about bringing their guns to bear, she kicked one in the nuts and the other in the head.

The other watchers in the room had turned around by now and stared in shock as the previously bound Brunette ran for a window and dove through it.

Faith yelled in shock as she realized that she had just jumped out of a third story window - "AHH SHIT!"

The ground came rushing up to meet her and she landed heavily on the bonnet of a car. She dented where she hit and slid off the car, onto the pavement below.

She grunted in pain as she rolled onto her feet. Then she started hobbling away and suddenly realized that she was in San Francisco. She could tell where she was by the easily recognizable Golden gate bridge in the distance.

After a second or two of thinking, she hobbled off again and into some dark alleyways. The shackles she had been given in that chair were still locked to her wrists and ankles, making an annoying rattle as she walked. She'd have to get them off somehow and she would have to get to Sunnydale before Xander while still avoiding these watcher lunatics. The most unfortunate thing about this was Xander had a half an hour head start.

O-O-O-O

It was a well-lit night as Xander waded through some swamp that for some unknown reason looked remarkably similar to the Louisiana bayou. He was wearing camouflage over his body, a heavy pack on his back and black engine grease smeared onto his face in the manner of war paint. His team waded slowly behind him, all of them as camouflaged and as faceless as he felt.

He shot a look at the runt of the group, knowing that he would be the first to go after his shoestrings when he died. Maybe he should just stick the prick right now and save himself the future grief.

Xander let out a huff as the paranoid part of him took a little control, the lizard brain. It was telling him that the runt was one of "Them."

It must be this new LSD they're sticking in his food. He knew it tasted a little different from the old LSD.

His lizard brain snapped at him again and his eyes leveled out at the horizon as the hairs on the back of his neck flicked up. It wouldn't do to die out here. That wouldn't solve anything.

There wasn't going to be any ticket tape funeral parade for him when he got back home. He wouldn't be going home to a hero's welcome at all because he knew he couldn't go back. Not after the things he had seen and done.

He didn't think the wild would let him go anyway. He knew he would die here and the creeping vines and the worms he ate for breakfast would pull his cold, bleeding body into the ground where he fell. For the rest of time he'd be tunnel-ratting the hole God dug just for him.

Ahead, the enemy sprung from their hidey-holes, screeching and charging like craze-driven kamikaze shock troops.

His gun snapped up and barked out tight bursts of gunfire into the wave of darkness threatening to take over the sacred night.

Xander, snarling under the gunfire – "No. Not on my watch."

But then more, darker, stronger forces came in from the sides, ambushing them and literally tore into him and his troops. He was caught under the crush of dead bodies, pulled into the shadows and ripped apart.

Xander screamed and shot upright in his bed, his eyes wide and totally bewildered.

Cordelia was by his side, holding him, pulling him down to cradle his head in her arms.

Cordelia, soothing – "It was just a nightmare. It's okay. I'm here for you."

Xander whimpered a little and sobbed into her shoulder as reality came flooding back to him.

It had been almost three months since Buffy sacrificed herself to save the world. That day Willow told them the real meaning behind Lambronazi's prophecy, that they were the power behind a new golden age. The watchers council didn't share this view and closed down most of their operations in Sunnydale since their promised vampire had died and in their eyes, the prophecies had failed. A few watchers stayed behind. Giles was one such watcher and another stayed to tutor Willow in the ways of magic. Xander was also under the impression that one or two had decided to retire in Sunnydale. He couldn't understand the logic behind that. Despite its sleepy façade, retirement and Sunnydale just didn't seem to jive.

On the fight against evil, he somehow became the unchallenged leader of the Scoobies. He couldn't understand the logic behind that either. Giles would have been a better choice but then again, the watcher didn't interact with the youngsters as much as he had when Buffy was alive. In all honesty, Giles was lost without Buffy. The only flimsy excuse Giles had to stay was to help take care of the Scoobies that were left behind.

Cordelia – "Was it the swamp one again?"

Xander nodded, having had the same swamp nightmare for almost every night in the past two weeks. Before the swamp dreams, the nightmares had been housed in what looked like a hospital. Before those, it had been in cities full of sky scrapers. The locations changed but the endings always stayed the same. He didn't know how well he'd handle the dreams if he didn't have Cordelia's help all this time. He doubted he would have the same patience she had been showing him after all these disturbed nights. When he looked up into her eyes he only saw comfort and understanding.

Xander, as the shakes faded away – "I'm feeling better now. Thanks."

Cordelia – "Think you could get some more sleep in before school?"

Xander thought about it and shook his head – "Nah. But you go ahead."

Cordelia, a little sleepily as she closed her eyes – "Hold me?"

Xander held her, lowering her back down in the bed and pulling the sheets back over them both.

Despite what he had said, a soothed sleepiness quickly crept into Xander's as he found comfort in the gentle embrace of his lover.

Before he got to enjoy it, the cellphone on the recharger rang out. It was chirpy but very insistent. The two bodies in the bed stirred again and groaned. Xander's arm reached out, spilled over a plastic cup and a bright red mickey-mouse club watch but eventually he found the cellphone, plucked it from the recharger and put it up to his ear.

Then he let out a small "Mmm-hmm" to whoever was on the line.

He lay like that for a while, listening to the voice on the other side, not saying anything much at all. The cellphone was a gift from, of all people, Giles. Giles had given them to all the Scoobies and had even brought one for himself although Giles still couldn't decipher the text messages of the younger generation. That was strange and humorous considering how many ancient and dead languages the ex-curator knew.

Xander, tiredly into the phone – "I'll be right there. Bye."

He blinked a few times and sighed as he put the phone back in the recharger.

Cordelia, wiping some drool away from her bottom lip – "Who was that? Isn't this is supposed to be a night off?"

Xander, mumbling – "Needa get up and go."

He righted himself up and started putting on some socks.

Cordelia sighed, got up to and mussed her hair a little as she frowned.

Cordelia, readying herself – "How's my hair?"

Xander took a look back and enjoyed the disheveled view.

Xander – "Fantastic. But you might want to comb it a little before you look in a mirror."

O-O-O-O

Scene – School library.

Giles put down the phone while Willow watched him, eager for information.

Giles sighed and didn't say anything, infuriating Willow.

Willow, impatiently – "Giles! What is going on!"

Giles – "The Xander from the future is back in Sunnydale and he's lost his restrictive spell."

Willow gasped – "That vampire? But.. Oh no."

Giles nodded – "And it's worse. He turned the Slayer and it is thought that she's coming here as well."

Willow frowned – "Huh? But how? I thought the Slayer was in China. You were telling me something about it earlier. She was called Chow Anne or Chew-ing or something."

Giles poked his glasses up a little higher on his nose and coughed a little uncomfortably.

Giles – "It seems that there are two Slayers yet again."

Willow – "You mean the Chinese Slayer died and was revived?"

Giles – "No. There was another slayer called before Chao-Ahn. Somehow Xander got to her before the watchers council could and turned her."

Willow – "But how?"

Giles – "I asked that very same question. The watchers ambushed the Slayer while she was traveling here. They tranquilized her and during an interrogation they found that Xander was involved. They also let the Slayer escape. Of all the asinine… But I digress. They found an unconscious human in the Slayer's custody when they captured her. After a few simple magical scans of the girl, it was discovered that she was extremely gifted in magics. If Xander is from the future and was a watcher as he said then he could be familiar with the rites to find Slayers but in all likelihood he wouldn't be able to cast them. That's where this poor girl comes in."

Willow – "But if Xander was evil, why would he keep this girl alive once he had used her?"

Giles – "Uh, well, I can only assume that he has plans for her. Or he enjoys tormenting her. Apparently she's quite fetching."

Willow – "Probably a blonde too."

Giles – "Why yes. As a matter a fact, Robson said that she was."

In the background, Oz growled threateningly in his cage and Willow looked back for a second at him.

Willow, soothingly – "Ozzy. It's okay."

The werewolf calmed down a little and Giles frowned.

Giles – "It's quite strange when Oz listens to you."

Willow – "I don't think so. So what are we going to do?"

Giles – "Well, umm, I need to go back to my place and get a few things. They intercepted Xander north of San Francisco so it should take him at least half an hour longer to arrive in town. I want to be ready for when that happens."

Willow – "Uh. Okay. I'll stay here then."

Giles – "Just in case, be ready with that tranquilizer rifle. If you see him, shoot him."

Willow, nodding nervously – "Right. I can do that."

Giles – "I'll be back in twenty minutes, no longer. Also, Xander and Cordelia should be arriving any minute now."

Willow nodded a little more and Giles quickly left, leaving her alone with just a werewolf and a tranquilizer gun for company.

Oz growled in a threatening manner again and Willow turned to him with a frown.

Willow – "What is it, boy?"

Then a cool hand closed over her mouth and another slipped around her waist to hold her in place.

Vampire Xander, whispering into her ear – "Sorry I couldn't get here earlier but traffic was murder."

Willow's screams came out as muffled moans as Xander enjoyed her warmth and the taste of her fear.

O-O-O-O

Cordelia was driving her recently repaired sports car along the streets of Sunnydale with Xander in the passenger side.

Cordelia – "So explain this to me again?"

Xander – "Evil dead me is back in town and he's spell-free. Just for kicks, he brought along a slayer he turned."

Cordelia – "And what? We're supposed to .. fight them? Both of them?"

Xander – "That was the idea. No, actually regroup then fight them was the idea."

Cordelia – "Regroup? That's military talk for run away, isn't it?"

Xander – "Usually but this time I'm actually talking about regrouping. We'll get Giles and Willow from the library, shoot Oz with a dart then go to the bronze to find Xander. Wait. Of course I wouldn't go to the bronze."

Cordelia – "Why not? We found vamp you at the bronze the last time."

Xander – "That's because he wanted to talk. Now he wants to go for the kill this time."

Cordelia – "Kill? Kill who? Kill me?"

Xander – "No. Kill Buffy. She's more a threat than you are."

Cordelia – "But Buffy's dead."

Xander – "But I don't know that."

Cordelia looked at him oddly for a second.

Cordelia – "Oh, you mean the other you. Right. Gotcha. Umm. Do you think we should warn Joyce?"

Xander and Cordelia shared a look and both of them nodded in agreement.

Then Cordelia did a vicious U-turn, pulling her sports car into the sort of hair-pin turn that could get your insurance nullified.

Xander just grinned – "You're getting better at that."

O-O-O-O

Faith rested against the side of her stolen black van as she fished out a page she had torn from a local phonebook. One of her fingers scrolled down the page until it came to rest under "Summers."

She looked up at Joyce Summer's house for a few seconds then sighed and approached the front door. For such a small town, it had a lot of Summers in it. This was the fourth and last house in the local phonebook and Faith hoped it was the one as she didn't know what Willow's last name was, only that the Slayer was called Buffy Summers.

She knocked on the day a few times and waited.

Or was it Buffy Somner?

After a small time, Joyce came up to the door, opened it and blinked in surprise at the girl outside.

Joyce, trying to be polite – "Oh, hello there. What can I do for you?"

Faith stepped forwards a little – "Hey, um, this might come as a strange question but does Buffy Summers live here?"

Joyce didn't say anything at first and then slowly shook her head – "I'm sorry but Buffy died just a short time ago."

Faith – "Oh, uh, I'm sorry for your loss."

Faith looked down at the floor with a what-now look.

Joyce looked at the girl for a second or two as if her eyes were snagged on something.

Joyce – "You should leave."

Faith looked up, frowning at the wording.

Faith – "Look, you've got to help me. I'm looking for this girl which Buffy knows. She's called Willow."

Joyce – "You're a vampire."

Faith – "Well, yeah. I am. But I'm okay. I just need to –"

Faith stepped forward and bounced against the invisible barrier in the doorway.

Faith, touching the barrier in confusion – "What the?"

Joyce – "I've got nothing against you so please, just leave me alone."

Xander – "You heard the lady. Leave her alone."

Faith turned around to find Xander and Cordelia walking towards her. Both of them had stakes and Cordelia had a sizeable wooden cross.

Faith, in even more confusion – "Xander? Uh, who the hell is that?"

Cordelia – "I'm his girlfriend."

Faith – "Damn. And I thought I moved fast. Or does he have a girl in every town?"

Joyce, from behind the protective barrier – "Xander. They're a vampire."

Xander closed his eyes for a second to sigh – "Yes. We know."

Joyce – "They were asking about Willow."

Faith – "Hang on. You're not Xander. Who are you?"

Xander – "No. I am Xander. I'm the original. See, vampire me traveled backwards in time and voila! now there's two of me."

Faith walked forward a little bit, to get a better look. This Xander was definitely younger, had two eyes and was slimmer too.

Faith – "You're human. And she's human too."

Cordelia – "And you're one of Xander's slutbombs."

Xander, cringing – "Cordy. That's not nice."

Cordelia – "I'm not trying to be nice."

Xander – "Yeah. But how would you like if it she said you were a slutbomb?"

Cordelia – "I wouldn't care. She's an evil fiend. We're going to kill her anyway."

Faith watched the byplay with a little confusion. Obviously both Xanders were crazy.

Faith, sighing – "This is ridiculous. You're both human and I'm a vampire. You don't stand a chance. Oh! And I'm a Slayer. That means I'm even stronger."

Cordelia, looking Faith up and down – "YOU are a Slayer?"

Faith – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Cordelia – "You're kinda dumpy."

Faith, getting angry – "I am NOT dumpy!"

Cordelia – "And what's with those clothes?"

Faith looked down at the black leather pants and bustier she was wearing and didn't see what the other girl was talking about. Faith was already of the dangerously curvaceous persuasion and the tight fitting clothes did nothing to hide this. In fact, the cuts of their clothes might actually be adding to their curves, compounding on what nature had already endowed her with.

Faith – "There's nothing wrong with what I'm wearing."

Xander, to Cordelia – "She's right. If she wants to dress like a whore, I say we let her."

Faith – "Hey! You picked these out for me. Uh-I mean the other you."

Cordelia – "You let Xander dress you? Oh my god! That is so wrong."

Xander, pointing to Cordelia – "That's true. That's why I let her dress me."

Cordelia, to Xander – "I want to kill her just to put her out of this misery."

Faith – "Excuse me. I'm a VAMPIRE! You two are just two .. normal people. Move out of my way before I make you move."

Xander chuckled and stepped forward – "Then I guess you're going to have to make us."

Faith looked Xander up and down for a second then lashed out with a punch which he caught with lightning fast reflexes. Before she even knew what had happened, Xander lunged with a long stake, which she caught in her hand just before he drove it into her heart. While Faith was still in shock, Xander tripped her up and drove the stake down.

As they hit the ground, Faith deflected the stake and it was driven deep into her shoulder, causing her to gasp as intense pain ripped through her. While she was writhing, Xander punched at her with his free hand. He got in three good hits before Faith managed to bring a leg up and kick him off.

He rolled back across the lawn and kipped himself up and pulled out another stake, growling as he did.

Faith ripped out the stake in her shoulder and glared at him. For the first time, she realized that Xander's eyes were the same flat reptilian yellow color she had seen in so many vampires but he didn't have the ridges over his forehead and that just felt wrong to her on so many levels.

Faith – "What the hell are you?"

Xander, grinning like an idiot – "Like I said. I'm human."

Faith – "The hell you are."

Xander – "But I'm also tainted with the vampiric energies my twin brought with him. It's a little side effect of having two Xanders in the same universe. Our essence gets mixed a little bit. I don't know about him but it's made me one hell of a lot stronger."

Faith – "I noticed."

Xander – "I'll tell you what. Stake yourself now and I won't have to do it for you."

Cordelia, with a little disappointment in her voice – "Xander. That never works."

Xander – "I know. I just like saying it."

Faith applied pressure to her gaping wound and groaned. This was going to be a long night.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	29. 10b Immoral clause

O-O-O-O

Faith and Xander faced off against each other on Joyce's front lawn, each with a stake.

Then Faith just sighed and stood back a little, shaking her head.

Faith – "This is stupid. We're on the same side."

Xander backed off a little too and frowned in confusion.

Xander – "Uh, no we're not. You're evil."

Faith – "I'm not evil. Your older, meatier vampire self from the future is evil. I'm not evil at all… well, maybe a little but… Yeah, I'm not evil. And this kinda hurts."

Faith nodded down to the gaping stake wound in her shoulder.

Faith, with a little worry – "Do vampires need first aid? Cos I could be dying here."

Cordelia – "I think you'll be fine."

Faith – "Do you think? Should it be bleeding like this?"

Cordelia – "No. That's normal. But we should sow it up."

Faith flinched – "Sow it up? Like with a needle? I dunno. That sounds like it could hurt."

Xander, angrily – "Cordy, She's trying to fool us!"

Faith, sitting down on the porch – "You don't mind if I fool you sitting down, do you?"

Xander – "Okay. Let's pretend that you're not evil. What are you doing here?"

Faith – "I came to find some girl called Willow."

Xander – "Aha! You came here to kill her, didn't you? So that she couldn't recast that controlling spell on the other me."

Faith – "No. I came here to MAKE her recast it."

After yelling at Xander, Faith felt a little light headed from blood loss. She wondered about the reason behind that since she was pretty sure vampires didn't use their blood to provide oxygen to their brain.

Xander, seeing Faith fade in and out a little – "Hey. Are you okay?"

Faith, growling – "No! I've only had two containers of blood in the past three days. Then I was in a car crash, got drugged into unconsciousness, fell out of a three story window and you just staked me. I'm not okay. In fact, I'm getting pretty sick of this. I really just want to get this business over with so I can finally get some proper food into me."

Xander – "Hmm. Okay. How's this for a plan? We tie you up and then we fix that shoulder and get you some blood?"

Faith – "And just who is going to fight Xander while I'm tied up? You?"

Xander – "Well, yeah. I think I could take him."

Faith sighed – "You know he uses guns, right? And you're strong but if you're still human then…"

Cordelia – "He uses guns?"

Faith nodded – "And that will kill both of you pretty quick. So the only sensible person to fight him is me."

Cordelia and Xander shared a mirrored look of frowning and resignation.

Xander – "Okay. You can fight him. But you have to do everything we say."

Faith looked up at Xander, not really knowing what he meant by that.

Faith – "Fine. But don't tell me to lick your boots or anything. I'm not into that sick stuff."

Xander sighed and tilted his head towards the street – "Get in the car."

Faith complied, getting up with a groan and plodding over to Cordelia's sports car.

She got in the front passenger side and Cordelia shook her head as she got in the drivers seat.

Cordelia – "No. You're going in the back seat with Xander… Did that came out wrong?"

Xander – "Actually, she should stay where she is."

Cordelia – "I don't want her up here. You handle her."

Faith chuckled a little – "Damn. I think your girl is trying to hand you off to me, Xander."

Xander – "She stays where she is. If she does anything wrong then I'm in the perfect position to stake her."

Cordelia sighed with resignation and started up the engine. Then she looked at Faith with a frown.

Cordelia – "Hey, um, my name's Cordelia. What's yours again?"

Faith – "Faith."

Xander – "And I'm Xander."

Faith and Cordelia together – "We know!"

Then Faith and Cordelia laughed at themselves until Faith winced in pain from her wound.

Faith – "Ahh, dammit."

Cordelia – "How bad is it?"

Faith, with a pained smile – "It only hurts when I breathe."

Cordelia – "Then try not to. And try not to bleed all over the leather interior."

Faith – "I really wasn't planning on it. And nice car."

Cordelia smiled warmly at the other girl – "Thanks. That's so sweet."

Faith looked Cordelia up and down, smirking as she did.

Faith – "Not the only thing."

Cordelia's eyes went a little wide and she shook her head.

Cordelia – "No. Don't even think about it. You bite me and its poof time for you."

Faith, frowning – "I actually wasn't thinking about biting you. I was thinking about an entirely different way of eating you."

Then, as if something broke, Cordelia's head snapped forwards toward the road and she focused on driving with a single-minded passion, dutifully ignoring the smirking vampire next to her.

O-O-O-O

Fives minutes later and Faith, Xander and Cordelia arrived at the library to find Vamp Xander on his knees with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He was also wearing a leash, which Willow held the end of. When Willow saw the others, she quickly hid something behind her back and as the other three stared at the scene she turned almost as red as her hair color.

Willow, eeking out – "This.. it's not.. He said.."

Evil Xander, evilly – "We're just playing."

Willow looked down at the vampire for a second then looked back up and nodded emphatically. Then when she thought about what the vampire said and frowned at how he said it.

Faith – "Damn, Xan. You DO have a girl in every town."

Human Xander – "Willow! WHAT! THE HELL?"

Willow's mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to formulate a proper reply. Eventually an improper reply came forth.

Willow – "See, he, uh, he told me how his thing was .. uh.. I was .. well, I've got him chained up, don't I?"

Human Xander – "But my question is how did you do that? Is that a riding crop?"

Willow threw the riding crop behind her back across the room to land behind the desk.

Willow – "Uh, no. Don't know what you're talking about."

Human Xander – "What the hell is going on?"

Willow – "He came along and-and he kinda asked me to chain him up and so I did and.."

Vamp Xander, smirking – "And then it got it a bit out of hand. Didn't it? I think Willow's just found out how much she loves domination."

Willow – "Wha? No I don't. It was you who liked it. I mean.."

Faith, smirking as she approached the red head – "So this is Willow? She's cute. I guess you like them innocent looking."

Willow backed off from Faith, inadvertently pulling on Xander's leash as she did.

Willow, still a little shaken from being caught red-handed – "Uh, who are you?"

Vamp Xander – "Where are my manners. Willow, this is Faith. She's a Slayer slash vampire."

Faith – "Hey."

Willow – "Hi… uh, are you evil?"

Faith, smirking – "Asks the girl with the riding crop?"

Human Xander, slightly pained – "We're not entirely sure she's evil. But she could be."

Right then, Giles came and stared at the scene. He didn't quite know what to make of it. Finally he turned to Faith and introduced himself.

Giles – "Hello. I don't believe we've been introduced. My name is Rupert Giles and - Oh dear! Sit down. You shouldn't exert yourself with an injury like."

Faith sat down calmly and Giles dumped a knapsack full of weapons and wandered off into his office to get a first aid kit.

Faith, ruffling Vamp Xander's hair – "I think I like this town. It's got good service. Don't you think, Xander?"

Vamp Xander – "I'm not complaining."

Giles came back out with the first aid kit.

Giles, as he opened the kit up and searched for what he wanted – "I wasn't expecting the other Xander to get here so fast."

Cordelia – "It's okay. Willow handled him."

Giles looked up from the kit in confusion.

Giles – "Willow?"

Vamp Xander – "What can I say? I'm a sucker for a red head."

Cordelia – "You should have seen what we saw when we came in. Actually, thinking about it now, no, you shouldn't have."

Giles – "What did you see?"

Cordelia – "Willow making time with the enemy."

Vamp Xander – "Hey, I'm not the enemy."

Willow – "And I wasn't making time."

Vamp Xander – "It was just some harmless flirting. Right, mistress?"

Willow – "Right. I mean HEY! Don't call me that."

Vamp Xander – "Aww, but it's not really cheating if your boyfriend is in the same room as you."

Giles applied some iodine to Faith's wound and she screamed, jumping out of the chair with her game flashed on, glaring at Giles threateningly.

Faith – "Damn it! What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me?"

Giles stumbled back and gasped, quickly coming to a realization.

Giles – "You're the slayer Xander turned?"

Faith gave him an odd, unreadable look. The heavily knotted vampire brow didn't help Giles figure the look out either.

Faith – "Xander didn't turn me."

Giles – "But I was told..-"

Xander – "Yeah. I didn't turn her. It was some fruitcake called Kakistos."

Giles – "Kakistos? Kakistos.. Oh yes. I've heard of them."

Faith sat back down and growled – "Well, you've heard the last of him. I killed him. Can we bandage me up now?"

Giles wasn't that eager to get near Faith again until her game-face melted away.

Giles – "Since you're a vampire, I guess we can forgo any more antiseptic and move straight onto suturing."

Faith – "Yes, please! Um, what's suturing?"

Faith winced as Giles closed her wound with a butterfly clip and she turned to Xander, as if to ignore the pain.

Faith – "So Xander. What did you get up to while you had your few hours of freedom?"

Vamp Xander – "Not much. I practically came straight here."

Faith looked at him skeptically.

Faith – "Yeah, right."

Vamp Xander shrugged – "I'm evil. So I don't care if you believe me."

Faith sniffed at him skeptically.

Faith – "So you didn't do anything?"

Vamp Xander nodded his head with a grin.

Faith – "Nothing at all?"

Vamp Xander – "That's right. Don't you just hate it? You wanted me to do something really evil, didn't you?"

Faith – "No… maybe a little. Cos then I could discipline you for being such a bad – OW!"

Faith glared at Giles accusingly.

Giles, with another butterfly clip – "I'm sorry. I slipped."

Human Xander – "I'm not buying this. There's no way this fine young cannibal would just roll over and play dead. He's got something up his sleeve."

Vamp Xander, leaning over so his head was resting on Willow's hip – "What's so hard to believe that I wanted my wicked witch. She's the only one who knows how I like it."

Willow pushed him away with embarrassment.

Willow, pleadingly – "Stop that. It's bad enough already."

Xander – "It's alright if the vampire loves you."

Faith – "It's funny. That's not the first time he's said that to a - WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with that dog in the cage?"

Cordelia – "Oh. That's just Oz. He's a werewolf."

Faith looked at a few of the people in the room, all of whom were remarkably comfortable with having the werewolf in the same room as them.

Faith – "Okay. Whatever. You've got a pet werewolf."

Willow, shocked at Faith's words and shaking her head – "No. He's not a pet. He's my boyfriend."

Faith blinked a few times. She looked at the cage with the rabid animal in it. Then she looked at Willow and shrugged.

Faith, trying to get her head around that – "Damn, Xander. You never told me this girl was such a freak! We shoulda picked her up ages ago."

Willow – "Hey. It's not like that!"

Faith, backing off – "I'm not judging you. In fact, I'm feeling kinda intimidated."

Willow – "No, he's only a wolf on nights with a full moon."

Faith – "Oh. Okay."

Vamp Xander, chuckling – "Faith, he's just a guy with a monthly cycle."

Human Xander – "Can we DO something about this guy? Please? Like more chains? Maybe something to gag him with?"

Vamp Xander – "Sorry, Will but junior's right. We should do the spell."

Willow, a little uncertain – "Oh, uh. Okay."

Giles – "I'll do it."

Vamp Xander, smirking – "If it's all the same to you I'd prefer Willow to do it. I kinda like being her slave. And I know she likes being my mistress."

Willow – "Can you please stop talking like that?"

Vamp Xander pouted and bowed his head submissively. Then he smiled evilly up at Willow and got a shiver of revulsion out of human Xander.

Human Xander – "I can't take this. Spell him already, Giles."

Willow – "Actually, I really think I should do the spell. If Giles did it then he would be honour-bound to force him to tell us everything about what happened last time around."

Cordelia – "Would that be such a bad thing? I mean, seriously?"

Vamp Xander – "Yes. It would. I know how the council thinks. If it knew what I knew, you'd all be dead by now. Well, except the other me and they wouldn't kill Giles either but they would fire him. But they would definitely kill Willow and Cordelia and.. probably Oz and.. everyone else. They'd kill Buffy. They'd kill Faith. And they would kill a bunch of the other Slayers too. Particularly that one that cuts Spike's hands off even though that was kinda funny."

Human Xander - "Why? I don't get that. Why would they kill them?"

Vamp Xander just groaned – "Let's see. Willow tried to implode the world with the help of a satanic god totem and Cordelia gave birth to a goddess that almost ruled the entire world via mass hypnosis. I'm not even going to go into what Faith gets into."

Faith – "Huh?"

Vamp Xander – "I'm just going to say this. Buy Faith a pretty knife for Christmas and she'll love you forever. Just don't let her use it in the house. Oh, and she doesn't react well to negative reinforcement so hold back on the spanking. Use positive reinforcement instead. You know, golden stars and lollypops for when she's good."

Willow, to Vamp Xander – "I don't suppose you'd give me a hint on what spell I used to enchant you?"

Vamp Xander – "Willow, my tasty mistress, if you would take a look in the inside pocket of my jacket then you'll find the spell we both need."

Willow cautiously reached into the vampire's Xander and yelped when he kissed her on the elbow and yanked her arm away.

Willow – "Hey. I told you no kissing."

With that said, she pulled tight on the leash and reached in and pulled out a piece of grid paper out of his jacket. No one said anything about the domineering behaviour from Willow, not even as a joke.

Willow frowned and looked at the Sumerian scribbled on it.

Willow – "This is it? The entire spell? What about ingredients?"

Xander shrugged – "I don't think it needs any. Should warn you though, it is necromancy. You never liked necromancy."

Willow, with a shiver – "Well yeah because necromancers are gross. Playing with dead body parts is just disgusting."

Giles – "Could I please have a look at that?"

Giles took the paper from Willow and frowned.

Giles – "This is no simple spell. It would require more experience than Willow can attest to."

Vamp Xander – "Actually it's really easy if it's done on a willing subject."

Human Xander – "And you'd just let her?"

Vamp Xander – "I love my mistress. I'd do anything for her heart desires."

The way the vampire stressed anything made Willow take a small intake off breath. Damn him and his sexy Fonz wannabe fashion sense.

Faith – "What would happen if the vampire wasn't willing?"

Giles – "That's a good point. It could irreparably harm the caster, stunting her ability to cast magic."

Faith grinned – "Then Xander, if you don't let her, I'll rip your balls off and make you eat them. How's that for incentive?"

Vamp Xander, looking adoringly up at Willow – "I've already got all the incentive I need."

Faith groaned – "You're making me sick here."

Human Xander – "Not the only one."

Willow took the grid paper back off Giles and memorised the words.

Willow, to her bound vampire – "Are you ready?"

Vamp nodded easily, almost anxiously.

Willow closed her eyes and focused intently, calling on the power within her to rise up. Her breath raised a few notches and Vamp Xander watched her with admiration.

Vamp Xander – "God, I love when she does magic."

Willow, chanting words of power – "zu ihzu kad gahs-an si uri a ni ingh."

After that, she closed her eyes and sat down as some dizziness hit her while vamp Xander let out a little sigh of contentment.

Everyone else just kept watching.

Cordelia – "What? That's it?"

Willow nodded and took the leash off of the vampire's neck.

Vamp Xander, winking at Willow as she uncuffed him – "We'll save those for later."

Willow – "You didn't struggle at all. Did you?"

Vamp Xander – "I could never resist you."

Willow, blushing again – "You're a .. a very charming vampire."

Vamp Xander – "Your favourite vampire?"

Willow, coyly – "I don't know. I know quite a few."

Human Xander – "Willow. Stop flirting with him! God, woman."

Faith, looking Vamp Xander up and down sceptically – "Are you sure he's back to normal?"

Willow – "Yes. He's back to.. what he was."

Faith – "Good."

Then Faith grabbed Vamp Xander by the ears and smothered him with a passionate, searching kiss that no one else expected.

Vamp Xander, after Faith broke off the kiss – "I believe I owe you something."

Faith, grinning widely – "It'll have to wait. We need to get out of town before those watcher stalker guys find us here."

Vamp Xander hesitated at this and backed off from Faith with a frown.

Vamp Xander – "You can't come with me."

Faith – "What? Why not?"

Vamp Xander Xander – "Faith. The watchers council really wants to nab me for my future knowledge. And you, you're like a giant walking talking homing beacon."

Faith – "So what? You're just going to leave me stranded here?"

Vamp Xander – "No. I'm leaving you with these guys."

Faith – "But I don't even know them!"

Vamp Xander, tilting his head towards his human counterpart – "Well, you kinda know him already. Just expand on that."

Faith – "But they're not.. They're not like us."

Vamp Xander – "No one's like us but play nice and you'll find that they can be fun in their own ways. Anyway, gotta go, sugar."

Faith reached in and kissed Xander again, this time growling as they both broke it off.

Faith – "You still owe me."

Xander – "And I'll repay you. With interest. Promise."

With that, Vamp Xander spun around and started running out of the room.

Willow – "Xander. Stop!"

And Xander stopped, looking back to her with a confused look.

Willow – "I performed the spell but I forgot to give you any orders."

Vamp Xander – "Oh yeah. I forgot too. So come on. Hit me. What's your bidding?"

Willow – "Umm, don't kill good people and do evil stuff. Okay?"

Vamp Xander – "Your wish is my command. Now I'll be going."

Human Xander – "Whoa! That's it? Don't kill good people and do evil stuff? And wham bam thank you, Ma'am? I don't think so. There's some stuff we need to know."

Vamp Xander – "Like what?"

Human Xander – "Like what did you really do when you got uncursed?"

Vamp Xander – "It's like I said before. Nothing much."

Human Xander, to Willow – "You ask him."

Willow – "Okay. What did you REALLY do?"

Vamp Xander sighed before answering.

Vamp Xander – "If you simply must know. I killed Warren Mears."

Willow, confused – "Why? Who's Warren Mears?"

Xander - "Because I don't like him. In the last timeline he tried to kill Buffy on a number of occasions. Not only that but he killed succeeded in killing Tara. He also killed his own girlfriend but I don't really care about her that much."

Faith, in shock – "He kills Tara?"

Xander nodded – "That's how she died last time. Shot through the heart by Warren."

Cordelia – "Who's Tara?"

Faith – "She's a witch we were traveling with. She saved both our lives."

Xander – "And I returned the favor. Sorta. Maybe. I hate time travel. It's so confusing. Is that all? Because I really want a head start on the council."

Willow frowned and nodded, looking away as the vampire ran off with little more than the receding sound of his footfalls.

Cordelia – "Is a goodbye too much to ask?"

Faith – "I guess it is."

Human Xander – "I don't get it. He's evil but when he gets his first chance to kill someone human, he kills someone evil. I don't get that."

Willow – "Some souls might burn so brightly that even their darkness shines like the shadow of stain glass window."

Xander – "Hey, that's kinda cool. Where did you hear that?"

Willow – "Other Xander said it before you four came in."

Cordelia – "I think he's just a really sick puppy of a vampire that likes being controlled."

Faith – "I second that notion. He's got more kinks than a pole-dancing python. But he is kinda cool for a vampire. I think I might like them sick and twisted."

Xander – "Then it's a good thing you weren't here when Angelus was around. Would've been love at first bite."

Willow – "Oh!"

Everyone looked at the redhead after and she frowned and thought intently.

Willow – "Um. I, uh, Vampire Xander told me something and I think we should check it out."

Xander – "What was it?"

Willow – "I um.. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. Plus, it could be sort of dangerous. So could Cordelia and Giles stay behind while Xander, the new Slayer and I go and investigate?"

Giles – "It doesn't take two of us to watch over Oz."

Willow – "Um, no but this is.. I think this is the best way."

Others in the room frowned in confusion.

Faith – "You know I'm not really in fight mode right now. I should rest up on this shoulder."

Xander – "Sorry about that."

Faith – "It's okay. Just don't try it again or next time you'll be the one getting staked."

Willow – "It's more of an investigation than a fight. Hopefully, there won't be any fighting at all."

Faith sighed – "Okay. But if there's fighting, you owe me a blue bangle."

Willow frowned, not really getting that reference – "Umm, okay."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later, on the streets of Sunnydale.

Faith – "I can't believe this. I never knew you were such a pussy, Xander, leaving me like that."

Xander – "Hey. Don't take his actions out on me. We're two entirely different people."

Willow – "So how long have you known Xander?"

Faith – "Not long. Five days or so. Although three of those days I spent with him between my legs."

With that, she winked at the very human Xander.

Xander – "Just so you know, I'm taken."

Faith – "I know. But if you two ever want to experiment a little, you know where you can find me. That girl of your, mmm, nice legs."

Willow – "Umm, Faith. I know I'm going to regret asking but there was something you said before that I didn't get. What exactly is a blue bangle?"

Faith – "Oral pleasure."

Xander – "Is that cockney rhyming slang?"

Faith, looking at him oddly – "No. Uh, you guys never played that game?"

Xander and Willow shared confused looks.

Xander – "Is it something like spin the bottle?"

Faith – "You mean how it's a lame kids game that never goes anywhere? Yeah. See, you wear different coloured bangles and if someone breaks it, you have to do something for them depending on the colour of the bangle. So say I was wearing a blue bangle and Xander broke it, I'd have to orally please him."

Willow, sceptically – "That doesn't sound like a kids game."

Faith snorted – "No one ever actually went through with the act. At least, no one I played with. Disappointing really."

Xander – "Um, okay. Moving on. So where are we going Willow?"

Willow – "To Angel's mansion."

Xander – "Why?"

Willow – "Because we need to find the exact spot that Angelus was sent to hell. Vampire Xander said it was important."

Xander blinked at her.

Xander – "That happened last time too!"

Willow, nodding – "Your other self seemed a little surprised it would happen again. Although Buffy didn't die in his timeline."

Faith – "Could someone explain for Mrs uninformed?"

Xander – "Umm, well. Where do we start? There once was a vampire called Angel."

Willow – "And he was cursed with a soul so that he could feel endless guilt for his past sins."

Xander – "But if he had a moment of true happiness, such as getting his rocks off with a certain Slayer, then the curse is lifted and he goes back to being an evil bastard and turning all his old human friends into vampires."

Willow – "And that's when he turned Buffy, one of the previous slayers, into a vampire."

Xander – "But it didn't take."

Willow, nodding – "That's right. Like you, she didn't go completely evil. She just went half way. But because of some obscure magical reason, when Angel lost his soul and then turned Buffy almost straight away, she somehow absorbed his soul."

Xander – "And then she went evil, killed the real Slayer and almost helped Angelus to plunge the world into hell."

Willow – "But at the last possible moment, she decided that she didn't want to plunge the world into hell so she just plunged just Angelus and herself into hell instead."

Xander – "In a way, Angelus got to eat his cake and have it too. He wanted hell and he wanted Buffy. In the end, he got both."

Willow – "But before Angelus was sentenced to hell, we cursed him with a soul yet again. His soul was ripped straight out of Buffy, killing her and so instead of an evil fiend being sent to hell, we sent Angel instead."

Xander – "Who is just a normal fiend minus the evil part."

Faith looked at them blankly for a few seconds.

Faith – "Forget I asked."

Xander, to Willow – "And I'm wondering why we're going back to the scene of the crime?"

Willow – "Umm, because the same thing sorta happened in the other Xander's timeline too but with a few differences. The whole Acathla fiasco happened but Buffy never died during it or went evil. One of the things that happened afterwards was that Angel came back from hell in the exact same spot that he was sent to hell."

Xander – "Please tell me you're kidding."

Willow shook her head.

Faith – "So what are we doing?"

Willow – "We're going to find Angel and take care of him. That is, if he's there. Xander said that they were making with the crazy after they came back. So we should at least chain him down and keep him from hurting anyone."

Xander – "Or we could just stake him."

Willow, appalled at her friend – "Xander! We can't. You can't hold a grudge for what Angelus has done. They're two different people."

Faith – "This is really confusing me. Two different people?"

Xander – "Well, yeah. You know that people lose their souls and get possessed by demons when they're turned, don't you?"

Faith gave him a weird look.

Faith – "I thought it was just psychos who wanted to be vampires. Because I don't feel particularly soulless at all."

Xander, a little uncomfortable – "Well. Maybe you're a special case."

Willow – "I'm not sure about this. Even Buffy lost her soul."

Faith – "You can say whatever you want but I'm still the same person I was when I was alive."

Xander – "Yeah right. In the past five minutes, you've made more than ten sexual invitations. You're saying that's normal for you?"

Faith just shrugged – "It is for me. But half of those were just jokes. Though, Red, if I tear my shoulder back open then you really do owe me a blue bangle."

Willow – "Actually, I've read up on this with Giles. It turns out if a vampire is turned involuntarily then they can tend to keep more of their hosts personality. That would explain why the other Xander is so .. strange. He was turned by a freak accident so he was a real perversion as far as vampires go."

Xander – "Okay, that's me. But she still drank some vampire's blood so she was asking to be turned."

Faith slammed Xander against a wall, growling with her game face on.

Faith, snarling into his face – "I so did NOT ask for this."

Xander – "Okay. You didn't ask for this. Fine. Just let me go."

Faith – "You want to know how I was turned? Kakistos tortured me for days until I wanted to die. He wanted me to.. He made me beg for death. He promised he'd kill me but he didn't. Instead he made me into this .. thing! So you just shut the fuck up. You got me?"

Xander – "Yeah. I got you."

Faith backed off and growled a little as she unsuccessfully tried to force her game face back off.

Willow, placing a sympathetic hand of Faith's shoulder – "Faith. That's horrible."

Faith shrugged off the hand and winced. Then she looked down at her shoulder to find a slowly growing red spot on the bandage.

Faith – "Oh great. Now I'm bleeding again. Tell you what, Red. I'll give you this one for free."

With that said, she finally relaxed enough for her game face to fade away.

Willow – "Umm, thanks. Here it is."

Faith looked to Willow, who was pointing to a large abandoned mansion. The same one Angelus nested in with Acathla all those months ago.

Xander – "God, it feels like a life time since I was last here."

Willow – "I know what you mean."

Faith – "So what do we do if we find this Angelus guy?"

Willow rattled a bag of manacles she brought.

Willow – "We take him down and chain him up."

Xander – "I really hope I'm not going to hear you say that again anytime soon. You're starting to scare me."

Willow didn't say anything in reply and the three of them snuck into the old mansion through a large busted wooden slat window.

O-O-O-O

Inside the mansion, Willow held her nose in disgust.

Willow – "Oh god. What is that smell?"

Xander, similarly stricken – "I think something died."

Faith, grimacing – "So this is how the other half lives? I think the other half needs to learn to open a few windows for ventilation."

As they crept further into the nest, they all heard the sounds of squawking.

Xander – "Oh crap. Those must be demons."

Faith sighed – "Okay, Willow. You officially owe me a blue bangle now."

Willow – "Enough with the bangle. Should we take them?"

Xander looked to Faith who shrugged.

Faith – "Don't look at me. I've never fought demons before… except that one time when I fought demons. It's up to you two."

Xander pulled out a knife from somewhere and nodded.

Xander – "I'm a go."

So they walked closer to the sounds of demons and Xander gripped the door handle tightly.

Xander, to Faith – "When I open, you rush in. I'll be right behind you."

Faith nodded and readied the stake they had given her, feeling a little silly with just a piece of sharpened wood in her hands for protection.

Then Xander opened the door and they both rushed in and found themselves in a room full of caged animals. It was more of pet-store than a zoo. There were hamsters, budgerigars, mice, puppies, kittens, fish tanks and even a few snakes. There was also a large supply of pet food littered around the floors. At their entrance, the pets woke up and started making a racket.

Slowly, Faith and Xander moved slowly back out of the room, closing the door behind them. Both of them had frowns on their faces.

Xander – "Well, that was different."

Willow – "I don't believe this. Those must have been pets from the third street pet store. Remember how last week it got raided and a bunch of animals went missing?"

Xander shook his head with a shrug.

Xander – "No. Not really. What are they doing here?"

Willow shrugged – "How would I know?"

Faith sighed – "Let's get this over with so I can go get something to eat."

Willow nodded – "In that case, yes. We should hurry. Umm, Faith, if you should feel the need to, just saying in a hypothetical way, bite one of us then tell us. Okay?"

Faith, chuckling a little – "I'm not quite that hungry yet but I'll keep it in mind."

They kept searching through the rooms, until Willow came up against a locked door.

Willow, whispering over a distance to the others – "Hey."

The other two heard it and quickly, quietly came over.

Faith took the door handle and twisted it off. She looked at the door handle in annoyance then poked around inside the hole with her pinky finger. She found some sort of latch inside the simple mechanism and the lock clicked open. They slowly pushed the door open and entered the large bedroom.

The room was lit by candles in the middle of the room and various pillow and cushions were littered around the floor.

Chains rattled and everyone turned to find Angel snarling at them, futilely thrashing against his chains.

They backed up, away from Angel's reach and Willow yelped when something bit her in the back.

Xander turned and gasped to find a vamped out Buffy chained against the opposite wall and trying to pull Willow closer with her teeth. He immediately rushed in and forcibly extracted Buffy from Willow's shoulder. Then he tripped her up and knelt down on her neck to stop her from getting up again.

It was a struggle for Xander to keep her down but Buffy definitely wasn't at full strength. If she was, he didn't think those chains would hold her.

Willow – "God. Oh god. Buffy! How can this be? She's supposed to be dead."

Xander could hardly believe she was actually there. She still had the same clothes on that he had last saw her in, including the amulet of Sheznar.

Xander, still holding Buffy down – "Willow. Are you okay?"

Willow looked at her shoulder for a second and nodded.

Willow – "She didn't bite me. She just snagged her teeth in my shirt. Ow."

Xander – "I don't think the restoration spell for Angel worked."

Willow looked over at Angel and didn't see Angelus. In fact, she didn't see Angel either. Instead, she just saw a chained animal. When she looked back at Buffy, she saw the same thing.

Xander – "What's wrong with them?"

Willow – "They spent months in a hell dimension. Who knows what happened to them there."

Faith – "So let me get this right. That guy's Angel."

Xander, still looking surprised at seeing Buffy – "Yeah."

Faith – "And that girl's Buffy?"

Xander – "Uh huh. That's right."

Faith– "So who's this girl?"

Xander and Willow found Faith holding a squirming vampire with long brown hair by the neck.

Vamp girl, petulantly – "Hey, let me go!"

Xander and Willow shared a look. Getting sick of trying to hold her down, Xander jumped off Buffy and looked the new vampire up and down.

Xander – "I don't know, Faith. Did you drag her in from outside?"

Willow – "She must be the one that chained them up."

Faith chuckled a little then slammed the vampire to the ground and kicked her in the gut. They curled up in pain and made a pitiful little squealing sound.

Faith – "So we stake her, right?"

Xander looked down at the pitiful vampire on the floor and frowned.

Xander – "I dunno. Maybe we should chain her up too and ask her some questions."

Faith – "Why?"

Xander, gesturing to the chained up vampires – "Because doesn't this seem a little strange to you?"

Willow pulled out the manacles from the sack she had lugged around.

Willow – "Yeah. Let's give her some of her own medicine and chain her to a wall."

Faith growled in agreement – "I can tell you and me are going to get along, red."

Faith took one of the vampire's wrists while Willow took the other. The vampire struggled a little but was too weak from the beating Faith gave it and they chained it up to the wall through a convenient fixture on the wall.

Faith pulled on the girl's hair and grinned widely as they struggled.

Faith – "So you like chaining people up and torturing them?"

Girl – "No."

Willow – "You picked the wrong vampires to pick on. Because they're my new friends."

Willow pulled out a cross and pressed it against the vampire's neck. Strangely, she didn't get the usual satisfying sizzling sound but the girl wailed and sobbed underneath its power.

Girl – "Stop! Please! I didn't do anything! I don't even know you."

Willow pulled away the cross and Xander pulled out a stake.

Xander – "Let's just stake her. Just harassing them like this is starting to make me feel like the monster here, which is just plain wrong."

Faith put a hand to his chest, stopping him.

Xander – "Faith. I might not like vampires but I'm not into torturing them without a good reason."

Faith grinned as her as game-face turned on.

Faith – "It's not that. It's just I'm hungry. So why let this tasty morsel go to waste?"

The chained vampire looked at her in horror as Faith pulled her close and forcibly tilted her head back. Before Xander and Willow could object, let alone process what Faith was doing, she bit down into the young vampire's throat.

Her blood was thin but sweet and slid down Faith's throat like liquid sugar. Faith moaned as the fledglings blood filtered into her hungry blood stream and penetrated her mind.

Flashes of light and sound thrummed past Faith's mind eye. Flashes of running and screaming but not of victims but of the vampire in her arms. The world to them was a cold, bitter place until the day she found two of their kin, broken and bruised and unable to fend for themselves. She protected them from the world and stole pets to feed them. In the protective warmth of the day, when no rivals would stumble into her den, she would lay with her sire and teach them of a comforting embrace as she tried to mend their minds.

Faith's eyes snapped open and she backed off in confusion, staring at the vampire balling their eyes out.

Willow – "You feed off other vampires?"

Faith, distractedly – "What? Like they wouldn't do the same to you?"

Xander – "So now you've had your fill, now we can stake it?"

Faith – "No. On both counts. I haven't had my fill and we can't stake her."

Xander – "Why not?"

Faith – "Because she's not evil. She wasn't torturing Buffy. She's was taking care of her. This girl's is her childe."

Xander and Willow looked at her oddly.

Willow – "She's whose childe?"

Faith – "Buffy's. The blonde girl. Umm, when I drink someone's blood, it's like they become part of me. I get to see some of their memories. She wasn't torturing them. She was keeping them chained up to stop them from fighting each other. "

Willow – "Whoa. Buffy doesn't have a childe."

Faith sighed – "Childe, it's what vampire's call the other vampire's which they turn."

Willow – "I know that! But Buffy doesn't have any. You're wrong. She would've told us."

Vampire girl, an emotional mess – "Please. I'll do anything you want. Just leave me alone."

Faith gently kissed the girl on the forehead, leaving a lip shaped blood stain.

Faith – "It's okay. We don't want anything."

Xander – "Please don't tell me you want to spare this vampire."

Faith – "Xander, she's harmless. You know those pets we found? She stole them because she couldn't find enough rats to feed those two. She's just a scared little girl. Kinda cute too, don't you think?"

Xander – "Maybe if she had a bath because street urchin chic has never really been in fashion in Xander world."

Willow sighed and started unlocking the manacles holding them in place.

Willow, to Faith – "Okay. We won't stake her but she's your responsibility. Make sure she doesn't attack anyone."

Faith grinned as the childe fell into her arms once free of chains.

Faith – "I'm sure she knows how to behave."

Faith took the childe's chin and lifted it to look them in the eyes.

Faith – "So what's your name, girl?"

Dawn, weakly – "Dawn."

Faith – "Dawn. That's a nice strong name."

Dawn, frowning – "You bit me."

Faith – "Yeah. Sorry about that."

Dawn – "You don't just bite people. What's wrong with you?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	30. 11a And baby makes three

O-O-O-O

It was early in the night when the Scoobies arrived at theWatcher's recently reopened warehouse on the outskirts of Sunnydale.

Faith had arrived wearing a jeans tuxedo, with a formless black shirt underneath. Xander was wearing something almost identical which was more than a little embarrassing and got him weird looks from Cordelia.

Cordelia, meanwhile, was wearing an impeccable two piece black dress fit for a funeral. She accessorized the blank canvas of her clothes with a large silver cross. It was one of those really big ones that which you could probably unscrew and hide coke in if you were so inclined.

Willow was wearing one of her figure-hiding denim overalls while Oz was wearing a slightly stained off-neon lime green shirt.

Giles was wearing tweed. Enough said.

They were all waiting for Buffy to be released from her rather intensive examinations.

Faith, to Xander – "So are any of the others monsters?"

Xander blinked at her, still surprised at how Faith always turned to him for answers.

Xander – "Excuse me?"

Faith – "Oz is a werewolf and Buffy is a vampire. Is there anything else I should know about the rest of your friends? Like what's with the ice queen?"

Cordelia, bluntly – "There's nothing WITH me. I'm completely human."

Faith – "Just asking. Don't need to pack a wobbly."

Cordelia – "I am not packing a wobbly."

Faith – "Okay. Relax. I didn't mean anything by it. Sheesh."

Right then, Buffy came out to meet them being escorted by a few lab technicians and quite possibly the same team of mercenaries that Faith had half beaten to death just last night. In fact, they were the same team. Faith recognized them by the bruises they wore and the glares they sent her way. She gave them a friendly smirk back.

Buffy had gotten out of the blue jeans that she had been sent to hell in. Instead, she was a wearing a virginal white cotton T-shirt that was slightly too big for her and a similarly white short skirt. She was also wearing a brand new pair of anti-vampire vision pale blue shades.

Buffy, plainly – "Hi."

Xander – "It seems that reports of yours demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Buffy shrugged – "I guess."

Giles to Robson, another watcher – "How is she?"

Robson - "Her childe greatly underestimated how much blood Buffy needed but once we fed her enough she bounced right back. Her Sire, that Angelus fellow, he didn't though."

Xander – "That's fine. We don't really care about him."

Robson – "We had one of our mages look over them and it does appear that Ms. Rosenberg's rite of restoration succeeded. The fact that Buffy Summers survived is yet another tribute to her voracity. I presume that Angelus's plight is less of the physical now and more of the spiritual. But I'm sure once he regains his strength he will be back to whatever normalcy he held before."

Willow – "Well, that's great. That's great, isn't it, Buffy?"

Buffy stared at her blankly, as if waiting for something.

Willow – "And we want to say right now that everything that happened before stays in the past. We just have to move on from that. You know?"

Xander, nodding – "Yeah and I'm sorry for running you over and trying to shoot with a crossbow. We know now that you saved all of our lives."

Buffy smiled at Xander and sniffed in his direction.

Buffy – "You smell nice."

Some of the scoobies looked at each other in confusion while Willow moved forward.

Willow – "We know that time passes much more quickly in the demon realm you went to but.. do you remember us?"

Buffy looked Willow up and down and smiled slightly.

Buffy, reaching out to stroke Willow's hair – "I remember you, Willow. Pretty skin."

Robson, the watcher in charge of the research warehouse – "We gave her some sedatives to keep her mellow. So, she's undoubtedly disorientated."

Buffy growled good-naturedly at Faith who looked back at her with a frown.

Buffy – "You must be the new slayer they were telling me about. All wide eyed and bushy tailed."

Faith – "The name's Faith."

Buffy approached Faith, moving intimately close to get a better smell off her.

Faith, growling too now – "Hey, back off sedative girl."

Faith pushed Buffy away and the blonde went into an aggressive slouch, ready for more pushing. Faith reacted by unconsciously mimicking Buffy's stance and the two of them slowly circled while others in the room backed off in case they started fighting.

Willow - "Uh guys. What are you doing?"

When neither of them replied, Willow moved in and dragged Buffy away from Faith. Buffy looked at her oddly but didn't struggle.

Faith moved to follow them but was stopped by Xander.

Faith, angrily – "She started it."

Xander – "And what were you doing? Finishing it?"

Faith – "Umm, yeah."

Willow – "What is wrong with you two?"

Robson – "Arr. I believe I know. Our tests on Buffy show that she seems to be going through another estrus cycle."

Faith – "A what?"

Xander sighed – "She's in heat."

Robson – "And animals in heat are quite often more confrontational than normal during this stage so I dare say Faith was just reacting to Buffy challenging her right to mate or some other primal urge."

Faith – "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Giles – "We'll explain it to you later."

Faith frowned and finally shrugged, not letting them get to her.

Faith – "Whatever."

Giles, looking pointedly at the slayers – "But you two, behave yourself."

Buffy and Faith shot a look at each other which Buffy ended with a small snarl.

Cordelia – "Okay. Buffy's back to sorta normal. Can we go now? Because this is like the opposite of what I wanted to do tonight."

Faith – "Not yet, legs. Cos these guys said they'd show me Tara. So where is she? Cough her up."

An eager lab hand, running off to get Tara – "I'll just get her."

Robson, smiling – "As we agreed on the phone, your friend is safe."

Faith, smiling very falsely – "Thanks. But it would've been great if you didn't almost kill her to begin with."

The lad hand came back with Tara being pushed in a wheelchair by Dawn.

Dawn had obviously been given access to a bath and some new clothes because she now longer looked like a street urchin. She actually looked quite healthy with really shiny hair, if not a little pale.

Tara didn't look quite as healthy though with an arm in a sling and with a big purple bruise under one eye.

Faith had already readied herself for seeing Tara like this so it wasn't such a shock.

Faith to Buffy – "Aww. Isn't that so cute, Buffy? Our minions like each other."

Buffy just had to chuckle at that.

Buffy, to Dawn – "Hey rat girl. You been good for me?"

Dawn nodded and came over to hide under Buffy's wing. Buffy whispered something reassuring into the taller girl's ear. It was an intimate embrace but not sexual in the least. They acted more like close family than anything boiling away in Xander's gutter of a mind.

Faith, with a glad smile – "Hey Tara. How you been? Not too bad, I hope."

Tara – "It's mostly just bruising. I don't need this wheelchair. I could walk if I really needed to."

Faith – "But you don't need to so stay in that chair. I'll push you wherever you need to go."

Xander, gesturing towards Dawn - "Is it okay for that vampire to just wander about like that? And is her hair supposed to be that shiny?"

Robson – "Buffy's childe is a very intriguing subject but harmless from what we can tell. Very cooperative too. It seems that when she was turned, it was as someone was trying to make another slayer. The process didn't take and so Dawn was created with a vastly smaller amount of vampiric energy than normal and instead of having a corresponding portion of slayer energy, the vacuum was filled with some other form of exotic background energy that we're not that entirely familiar with."

Buffy – "And she really is harmless, aren't you, Dawnie? You do everything I say, don't you?"

Dawn nodded obediently which made Buffy grin and hug her.

Buffy - "I've always wanted my own pet vamp and now I've got one. I promise to feed it and chain it up at night and everything. And if it kills someone, I'll bop it on the nose with a newspaper."

Xander – "So Faith got it right? She really is your childe?"

Buffy nodded dopily, still under the effects of some unholy powerful drugs.

Xander – "I know we've gone over how everything is being pushed under the rug but when the hell did this happen?"

Buffy frowned as she struggled to remember the circumstances.

Buffy – "I.. It was the night Angelus turned me. He forced me to do things like feed off people and.. he made me turn Dawn."

Xander, pushy – "So where has she been all this time?"

Buffy – "I don't know. Not with Angel obviously. Just around, I guess."

Xander – "And how old is she? Is she older than you? Cos somehow that would be too weird."

Dawn – "I'm almost seventeen."

Buffy – "See, I'm older. I just happen to be shorter. Oh, Dawn, this is Xander. He's cute, isn't he? I like his floppy hair."

Dawn, with a nervous smile she couldn't hide – "Hi!"

Buffy – "And this is Cordelia, his girlfriend."

Dawn, as her smile deflated – "Oh. Uh, hello."

Buffy – "And the wicked redhead is Willow, my bestest snuggle-bunny."

Dawn, not quite catching that – "Huh?"

Buffy – "And the guitarist next to her is Oz, her boyfriend. Who.. actually, I don't remember much about him."

Oz – "Werewolf."

Buffy, laughing – "Oh! That's right. He's a werewolf."

Dawn, with some noticeable fear – "A werewolf?"

Oz – "I'm told I'm completely harmless."

Faith coughed to hide her sniggering.

Buffy – "And he's funny sometimes too and.. did .. Did we used to date?"

Oz shook his head.

Buffy – "Huh. Weird. So who was that guy behind the bike shed?"

Cordelia, to Robson – "How many drugs did you give her?"

Robson – "More than strictly necessary."

Buffy – "And the cute man is Giles. He's sooo smart."

While this was going on, Tara was frowning at Xander.

Tara to Faith – "He's the younger one, isn't he?"

Faith blinked at her in surprise – "You knew about that? Why didn't you tell me?"

Tara – "It slipped my mind. Sorry. But what happened to our Xander?"

Faith sighed – "He skipped town. Didn't want to get us in any more trouble with the watchers."

Xander – "No. I thought he left you because he didn't want the watchers to find him through you."

Faith snorted – "Oh how young and naïve you once were. There's probably some way to magically block their tracking and if there is then Xander would know about it. He really just didn't want to get us in trouble. He's like that."

Xander – "And you call me naïve? We're talking about an evil vampire, although a very strange one."

Faith chuckled and lightly hugged Tara across the shoulders – "Tell me, mini-Xander. If you were really evil, what wouldn't you do to keep us two waiting in your bed?"

Tara's eyes goggled at Faith then she sort of shrunk into herself and her hair closed in front of face like two curtains.

Faith, smirking – "Don't mind the tear-away. She's shy but a lot of fun once you get to know her."

Giles - "For once, could we show a modicum of civility and not discuss each other in terms of sexual innuendo?"

Tara, strained – "He's right. Enough spicy talk please. It's too much effort."

Faith, with a kiss to Tara's hair – "Aww, I'm sorry. You get better okay? Cos I wanna say a whole lot more spice to you later. Wanna say things that'll make your toes curl."

Tara groaned, knowing Faith wasn't joking about that.

Robson – "Well, that's enough excitement for one night. We should put Tara back to bed as she desperately needs more rest."

Faith, with a smile – "You get better, okay? Or I'll kick your sweet ass all over town."

Tara, smiling slightly – "Thanks for the motivation."

Robson to Faith – "I was wondering if you would take care of Buffy while she regains her strength. She's at her most vulnerable at the moment and heaven forbid, should she be attacked, she would be ill prepared to defend herself. You, Faith, have proven yourself to the council as not only a resourceful asset but as one with unexpected integrity."

That last comment got Robson more than a few weird looks.

Faith sighed – "Fine. But you know the only reason I'm helping you out is because I can't afford my own blood."

Robson – "And before I forget, here, take these."

Robson handed her a pair of Buffy's prescription glasses which Faith looked at oddly. Faith frowned as she put them on and looked around.

Faith – "Okay. That's weird. Why do I need these again?"

Giles – "They'll help fight any urges you have to drain people."

Faith snorted – "Then I don't really need them. So far I've only bitten other vampires."

Giles – "Excuse me?"

Faith – "Humans don't really make me hungry. I guess it's like cigarettes. If you don't start then you don't need to quit."

Cordelia, impatiently – "Can we go now?"

Robson nodded – "Yes. You may leave."

Giles – "I'll be right with you, children. I just need to have a word with Robson."

No one thought anything of it as Giles ushered Robson to the side as most of the others moved out into the car park and a lab hand wheeled Tara back to her temporary sick bed in the warehouse.

Giles – "What are we playing at? We know nothing about this Faith girl and you're having her watch over Buffy?"

Robson – "But we do know about Faith. She's in the prophecies."

Giles frowned – "Are you sure?"

Robson – "She's the hand of twilight."

Giles stared at Robson then couldn't help himself and snickered.

Giles – "The hand of twilight? I don't think they actually exist."

Robson – 'But it's true."

Giles - "But the hand of twilight was proven to be a fake entry to the prophecies centuries ago. You, yourself, informed me of this. The syntax structure and writing hand prove beyond a doubt that it was written by someone other than Lambronazi."

Robson – "Yes, as it was written in a more modern format using a standardized form similar to that of post-print English. But recent carbon dating of the old texts has proven that it was made before the era of printed word. Not only that but the sentence structure, the nomenclature, it's American. It was written purposely in Faith's language. If that's not prophetic, I don't know what is."

Giles stared at Robson, not in ridicule but in shock.

Robson – "Also, the Abomination and the hand of twilight are the only prophesized entities to have woodcuts made for them and the hand of twilight's woodcut fits Faith to a tea."

Giles blinked at Robson – "I hadn't heard there was a woodcut for Buffy."

Robson coughed a little uncomfortably – "We've only just uncovered it. Although, I admit, I haven't seen it yet."

Giles – "Well, this is .. I'm astounded. This is simply remarkable. The hand of twilight is real? Even if the passages were genuine, I would have thought it to be some sort of Sapphic delusion on Lambronazi's part. But it's really true?"

Robson – "And whoever wields her will know endless victory."

Giles, smiling – "Which is why you're trying to butter her up by showing we can trust her."

Robson, smiling as well – "Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, Rupert. But in a nutshell, yes. I don't know about you but endless victory is something I can live with."

O-O-O-O

Half an hour later and Faith had finally given into Buffy's requests to go on patrol. But Faith still didn't think Buffy was up to it so she brought Xander along for added security.

It was a real vote of confidence on Cordelia's part that she left Xander in the company of two hot vampire chicks on heat.

The night had been pretty quiet until the three Scoobies spied a group of vampires lounging around the cemetery, acting as if they owned the place.

Buffy, as she bounded up to them with her stake ready – "Did someone call for a slayergram?"

The vampires all looked at her with mixtures of shock and confusion.

Random Vampire – "Hey, aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Buffy, with a finger on the pulse point in her neck – "Wait a second while I check… yup! I'm dead alright."

Then Buffy jumped forward, spinning with a flying round house kick that clobbered the first vampire in the face. Unfortunately, she was way off balance and landed head first onto the grass.

Before any of the other vampire's could take advantage of her, Xander and Faith rushed forward and attacked.

Both of them got in a surprise stake but after that, it got a bit harder.

One of the vampires pushed Xander to the ground while the other two tried to over power Faith.

Faith drove her knee up into one of her vampire's ribs and twisted the same leg outwards to push the other one off her. They were both taken by surprise at her strength but not so much that they tried to retreat. Instead, they kept trying to take her down which stopped her from bringing her stake into play and kept her from helping Xander as well. As she spared Xander a look, she saw his vampire lying on top of him and rearing back to bite.

Suddenly the vampire on Xander exploded into dust and Buffy fell on him from above, having just dusted it.

From the ground, both of them looked over at Faith who had just dusted one. She brought an elbow up to the last vampire's ear and rattled its cobwebs. As it lost its balance, she leant into its heart with a stake and fumbled through the dust cloud upon its death.

Faith, gulping with the rush – "Whoa. That was cool."

On the ground Buffy's game face flashed on and Xander gasped.

Buffy, quickly getting off Xander – "Sorry, sorry. Oh, this is so embarrassing. This face thing just turns on at the worst times. It has a mind of its own."

Xander, smirking - "So it's like an erection? Oh god! It IS like an erection, isn't it?"

Buffy looked away shyly as Faith just smirked.

Faith – "So what if it is? You're telling me that thing in your pants right now isn't an erection too."

Xander looked down at his pants for a second then shook his head as he blushed like crazy.

Xander – "No. I don't know what you're talking about."

Buffy, pouting – "The new girl hogged all the vamps."

Faith – "And you're hogging all the good dirt."

Buffy frowned at her then snorted and wiped some dirt off her crinkly forehead.

Buffy, chuckling as her game face fell away – "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea but you know what? I feel better now. There really is nothing like a good slay to make everything clearer."

Faith – "You know what never gets old? How they just poof!"

Buffy – "Yeah. Although sometimes I wish I could stake them twice."

Faith – "Oh man. Now that WOULD be cool! You could stake them and they'd go OW! but you won't stake me again, bitch! and then blam! You stake them again and they'd be all I can't believe she stuck me again!"

The others stared at Faith rambling on and she chuckled a little in embarrassment.

Faith – "Sorry. This is my first time on patrol. I'm a little jumpy."

Buffy – "This is your first time?"

Faith – "Yeah. So?"

Buffy, chuckling – "I don't know, I just thought maybe we should hug you and whisper you sweet nothings in the afterglow."

Faith gaped at Buffy then chuckled too.

Faith – "Hey, she's got a sense of humor."

Xander – "Yes, she does. Although it's been a little warped recently."

Buffy – "Nuh-no it hasn't."

Xander – "Sure it has. Like how you keep scaring us by popping out of the shadows."

Buffy – "Oh, uh, that's not my sense of humor. You just look so scrumptious when you're scared."

Xander, to Faith – "See what I mean?"

Faith – "I think she was telling the truth there."

Xander frowned and looked at Buffy as she shrugged.

Xander – "Okay, that's scaring me on a whole new level. From now on, don't scare us, okay?"

Buffy pouted and whined like a dog. Faith instinctively came up and placed a hand on the back of Buffy's head and pulled her closer. After a few seconds of contact they both broke off, very confused at the liberties they took with one another. Xander was a little confused too.

Xander – "Just want to make sure here. You two are both okay, right?"

Faith – "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Xander – "No reason. It's just the last time Buffy was in heat, she was acting really strange. Like REALLY strange. Like she was on drugs."

Faith – "Are you sure she wasn't just on drugs?"

Buffy, suddenly very panicked – "Who are you people?"

Xander and Faith both looked at Buffy who was looking back at them like she didn't know who they were.

Xander, clearly concerned and perhaps a little cautious – "Buffy?"

Then Buffy hissed as if a sharp pain jabbed her in the temple.

When she stopped hissing and opened her eyes, she looked around with a bewildered look.

Buffy – "What was that?"

Faith – "Why are you asking us? You're the one who's going crazy."

Buffy closed her eyes and took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to sooth herself.

Buffy – "Okay. That was freaky."

Xander – "Obviously slaying was too much too fast. So I think we should get you home."

Buffy nodded and picked herself off the ground.

Buffy – "You're right."

Xander – "Umm, Buffy. We never really went into this earlier but what do you remember from your time in hell?"

Buffy, deflecting the question – "Umm. Nothing really. It's all a big blur."

Xander – "Because for a moment there, you didn't remember me either."

Buffy, a little uncertainly – "I could never forget you, uh, Xander. We um, you know, we go back. Yeah."

Faith – "So what happened just then?"

Buffy – "I don't know. I think it was some sort of vision."

Xander – "A vision? It's always a bad sign when you receive visions when you're supposed to be awake. What was it of?"

Buffy – "I don't know. Just flashes. I thought I was somewhere else for a moment there."

Xander – "Must be a flashback from when you were in hell. You know, war veterans get flash backs of past battles all the time. It's the trauma."

Buffy shook her head – "No. It wasn't hell. It was.. I don't know. I felt… I felt alive. I think I had a heartbeat."

Faith – "Yeah. That's definitely a sign to turn it in. Buffy, you've had your fill and I'm cutting you off."

Buffy chuckled – "I think you're right, lil sis. I think my head must be full of brain salad because that wasn't like any vision I've gotten before. My head is seriously not in the right place."

Faith – "Nuff said. Now let's get."

Buffy groaned and leant on a gravestone – "Can we just stop for a minute? I'm feeling kinda woozy."

Faith sighed – "Fine."

Faith slumped down onto the grass while Xander sat down in a calmer fashion.

Buffy – "So who brought the blood?"

Faith and Xander shared a look.

Xander – "I thought you brought it."

Faith – "I didn't know we were supposed to bring blood. I'm new to this, remember?"

Buffy groaned and rubbed her forehead as if to keep her vampire visage from coming out while Faith and Xander waited patiently for her.

Faith – "So you get visions, huh? I guess I'm kinda jealous. Giles was filling me in on all the stuff the big bad Buffy's done and.. What the hell am I doing here?"

Xander – "What do you mean?"

Faith – "This girl, G-man made her sound like she's invincible."

Buffy – "Funny. I don't feel like it."

Faith – "And if this Xander here is all super powered too, what do you guys need me for?"

Xander – "Firstly, I'm not a super powered as Buffy is. Or as much as you are. I've just gotten a lot stronger recently."

Buffy – "How does that work again? Sorry, my brain is having a hard time keeping its memories down. I got pukey-brain."

Xander – "That's okay, Buff. It's um, you remember that vampire version of me from the future?"

Buffy dopily grinned – "Yeah. He was cool."

Xander – "Okay, firstly, he's not cool and his vampire face looked stupid."

Faith, cutting Xander off – "Hey, how does my vampire face look? Does it look stupid too?"

Xander – "No. It's scary and maybe a little hot. Not stupid."

Faith's face brightened up and she smiled, almost bashfully.

Faith – "Aww, you player."

Xander – "And secondly, umm, well, I got vampire enhanced strength off him. It's something to do with having more than one Xander in the same universe for too long. Our energies mix or something. You should ask Willow about it since she's the one who explained to me."

Buffy – "Oh. Neat. Do you have any of the other stuff?"

Faith – "Like night vision. You have night vision, right?"

Xander shook his head – "No. No night vision. No super sense of smell or hearing or anything else really. Just strength."

Buffy hefted herself off the gravestone and yawned – "Okay. I'm good to go. We should get back to Dawn anyway. I don't like the idea of leaving her defenseless in that place."

Faith, with a smirk – "Motherly instinct."

Buffy, sourly – "Don't put it like that. It's weird."

Xander – "Talking of mothers, we haven't told Joyce you're back."

Buffy blinked at him and gasped.

Buffy – "Oh god. Mom. She's still alive!"

Xander – "Yeah. Try to remember that it's only been three months for us here."

Buffy – "Oh. Right. But I can't go back to her yet, okay? I'm still a little freaked out."

Xander nodded in understanding.

Xander – "I'm sure we'll figure something out eventually."

Buffy, with some relief – "Good. Now let's go."

Faith – "Because we've got to get back to your baby."

Buffy gave Faith an ineffectual glare.

Buffy – "Don't call Dawn my baby. That's too weird."

Faith, chuckling – "Then stop holding her like one. That's right. I've seen you two."

O-O-O-O

Back at the nest, things were very boring for Dawn.

She was reading a paper back book by the light of a small candle with a very bored expression on her face. The mansion just wasn't the same without the continual moaning and groaning and occasional snarling of her two sires. Now the mansion was completely dead.

Slowly, she put the book down and looked around the room as if trying to listen for intruders.

She crept up off the cushions she was sitting on and snuck over to a small chest of drawers. With considerable effort, she lifted one side off it of the ground and inched it away from the wall. With the bare brick wall behind it exposed, Dawn pulled away a loose brick to open a secret hiding place that only she knew about.

From within the hiding place, she pulled out a chocolate bar in a big shiny purple wrapper.

Then there was the sound of a crash coming from the front yard and Dawn yelped in fright. Quickly, she shoved the brick back into place and pushed the drawers back in place as well. Then she hid the chocolate bar under a pillow and slinked out of the room.

Her eyes kept snapping around as she moved to the front of house, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. Dawn inched up to one of the windows at the front of the house quieter than a mouse and peeked in between the wooden slats to the scene outside.

What she saw made her gasp and then it made it her smile.

What she saw was so much better than a chocolate bar.

O-O-O-O

Meanwhile Xander had left Faith and Buffy to go home alone, needing his own bed for the night. The two slayers walked back to the mansion the safe way.

Or rather, the safer way. You could only get so safe walking around at night in Sunnydale.

Faith – "So how well do you know this Xander?"

Buffy – "Pretty good. Why?"

Faith – "Just curious. So have ya ever gotten down with him?"

Buffy looked at the ground for a second as she nodded.

Buffy, quietly – "Once."

Faith – "What? Was it bad?"

Buffy – "Oh no! It was great. I rode that boy till he was black and blue. Uh, sorry."

Faith – "Sorry? For what?"

Buffy – "I.. Sorry. It's just the others don't like me talking like that."

Faith – "And there you are saying sorry again. You don't have to be all prim and proper with me."

Buffy gave her a small shy smile in reply.

Faith – "So, you enjoyed it?"

Buffy – "Yes. I enjoyed it. It's just, he's got this thing about vampires so.."

Faith – "So it was a one-off. Typical man."

Buffy – "But he's great. Xander's my rock. He's a clown and he gets in trouble all the time but he's always there for me."

Faith grinned – "Yeah. I get that. So, you got any other boys locked away somewhere?"

Buffy, shyly – "I-I'm not allowed to have sex. I kinda got banned from it."

Faith looked at Buffy askew, trying to figure out why.

Faith – "Are you a closet freak or something."

Buffy – "No, I .. This is so embarrassing. When I'm with a boy, I can kinda .. hurt them."

Faith – "Why would you do that? You're a sadist and you can't help yourself?"

Buffy, sighing – "No. It's because I'm like ten times stronger than I should be. I don't do it on purpose."

Faith, stunned – "Whoa. That's.. Man. That's rough."

Buffy – "Yeah."

Faith – "And kind of incredible. I never even considered that those muscles could be strong enough to crush a guys wedding tackle."

Buffy blinked at her and sighed deeply – "No, not.. the last human I was with, I broke both his wrists."

Faith - "Oh. Ouch. Why?"

Buffy – "I kinda pinned him down and.. clenched."

F – "Ouch again. You're really that strong? You don't look it."

B – "Well, yeah. Slayers get their strength from their emotions. And I've always found making love kind of intense, emotionally speaking."

Faith – "Oh right. Plus you're vampire too. That can't help with the super strength problem."

Buffy shook her head – "I don't think it works like that. Kendra was still stronger than me after I turned."

Faith – "Kendra?"

Buffy – "Oh, uh. That was the last Slayer."

Faith – "You knew her?"

Buffy nodded quietly.

Faith – "Wow. So what was she like?"

Buffy – "Umm. A bit.. umm.. She was a very good Slayer."

Faith – "Was she a bitch or something?"

Buffy – "No! Well, a little. No. Not really. We didn't get along. But she wasn't really that bad. We made our peace before she died. See, she was raised by the council and she handled things very differently."

Faith – "So she was British?"

Buffy – "Actually she was Jamaican. But she certainly acted British enough."

Faith – "So she was raised to be a real killer, huh? But she died, huh? How did she die? Must've taken an army to take her down."

Buffy – "Just a vampire. Umm. See, the thing is, she was strong and fit and trained but I don't think she had a lot to live for. I've found that when things get tough, motivation really helps."

Faith nodded and turned inwardly, wondering what she had to live for. Then she thought about broken wrists and frowned.

Faith – "Buffy. You know that there's more than one position, don't you?"

Buffy, confused – "Position? What are you talking about?"

Faith – "I'm just saying that there are a lot of very compromising sexual positions where you wouldn't really have a chance to crush a boy's bones. Have you tried doggy style? Or you could try bondage. Who knows, you might like it."

Buffy considered this and a small guilty smile fought its way onto her mouth.

Buffy – "Umm, I'll think about it."

Faith – "It's not really my thing but this one time, I was with this guy and we did this thing he called the umm, snappy cicada position or something kama sutra like that. It was really weird but kinda fun. See, you lie on knees on a bouncy mattress and the guy positions himself around you from behind. It's a bit tricky to get right but if both of you are in the exact right position, with every push down, he goes in and out with the same thrust. And when you bounce up, he goes in and out again. So it's like you're going twice as fast as you actually are. Plus, it really grinds those muscles. You know the ones I'm talking about."

Buffy, trying to visualize it – "I can't picture it. How does it work again?"

Faith – "It's all just working the angles. Kinda like the washing machine thing."

Buffy – "Washing machine thing?"

Faith – "You don't know about the washing machine thing? Oh man, you really haven't done much, have you?"

Buffy, sounding almost hurt – "No. I've done stuff."

Faith, patronizing her – "Sure you have."

By now, they had arrived at the driveway in front of their mansion nest. They both turned into the driveway to find a vintage dodge crashed into the fountain on the front yard and Dawn tugging on the sleeve of some hapless victim, dragging him across the grounds into the mansion.

By the fact that Dawn didn't stop dragging immediately, she obviously hadn't noticed Faith and Buffy in the driveway.

Wordlessly, Buffy and Faith walked into the front door after Dawn.

Now Dawn noticed them and she froze, as if hoping they wouldn't see her if she stood still enough.

Buffy, very slowly and very disapprovingly – "Dawn. What did I tell you about bringing home boys?"

Dawn, unsure how to explain this – "Umm, I was just.. I found him.. He's umm-"

Buffy, realizing who the supposed victim was – "Spike!"

Dawn, more brightly – "Yeah. He's Spike."

Faith – "You know this guy?"

Buffy – "Yeah. He's a vampire. Dawn, what are you doing with Spike?"

Dawn – "I was going to put him to bed. He's kinda crashed in the front yard."

Buffy – "Since when did we have a bed? And since when did you know Spike?"

Dawn – "Umm, a while now."

Buffy, giving Dawn a discerning look – "You two aren't..?"

Dawn – "No! No. We're not.."

Buffy – "Good. Because now I'm going to stake him."

Dawn gasped and stood in front of Spike and stopped Buffy from coming forward with the stake.

Dawn – "But you can't! He's unconscious. It would be, uh, dishonorable!"

Buffy squinted at Dawn and frowned – "Okay. What's going on here?"

Dawn – "What do you mean? Umm. Nothing's going on."

Buffy – "Dawn. Spike's not a pet. He's a very dangerous vampire."

Dawn – "I know. He just.."

Buffy sighing – "Yeah, he's got washboard abs. I get that but you've got to let me stake him. He's dangerous."

Dawn snorted – "No he's not really."

Buffy – "Yes, he is!"

Dawn – "No. He's sweet."

Buffy blinked at her childe in confusion.

Buffy – "Firstly, he's not sweet. Secondly, how would you even know if he was?"

Dawn – "Spike, he.. when I was first turned, he helped me."

Buffy frowned – "Really?"

Dawn nodded – "He told me what Angelus would do to me if I stayed and he untied me so I could get away. You remember that night, don't you?"

Buffy looked away in shame. She remembered the night she turned Dawn all too well.

Spike suddenly woke with a start, pushed Dawn away and fumbled his way onto his feet.

Spike, still blinking his eyes open – "Buffy? Huh a bloody hell did you find me?"

Buffy, with an angry glare – "You're parked outside our nest, you idiot! What are you doing in my town! I told you that if I ever saw you here again, I'd kill you."

Spike, trying to chuckle up some of his usual swagger – "But it's our anniversary, Bunny."

Faith – "Anniversary? You two used to date?"

Buffy – "No. I think he's talking about the first time he tried to kill me."

Spike – "Just when I thought you forgot. I'm touched."

Buffy lowered her stake a little, looked at the poor excuse for a vampire and sighed.

Buffy – "You know, I thought this moment would be more special somehow."

Before Buffy moved forward to stake him, Faith put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

Buffy, shaking her head – "Oh no. You're not staking him. I'm staking him. This is a personal matter."

Faith pulled her back a little and asked – "This vamp, who is he?"

Spike, slurring badly – "I'm Spike. Killer of two slayers! You hear that? I'll take you all on."

Faith looked Spike up and down and shook her head.

Faith – "There's no way you killed two slayers."

Buffy groaned – "I know. That's what I thought when I met him. But apparently, he has."

Faith – "But he's so stringy."

Spike – "Who the bloody hell are you calling stringy? Looks at your legs."

Buffy, chuckling – "Oh, Spike. Meet Faith. She's a slayer too! Do ya think you can take two at the same time? Without any backup?"

Spike rethought his situation and stumbled back, falling backwards over a small crate and hitting his head on the wall on the way down. The way he didn't move afterwards had Buffy thinking that he had just knocked himself out.

Faith, with a big dimpled smile – "Hey, Buffy. I just thought of a plan so evil that I almost feel guilty about it."

Buffy, curious – "Am I going to like this plan?"

Faith – "I reckon so. You get his arms. I'll get his legs. Dawn, you break out the shackles because tonight, we're gonna get freaky!"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	31. 11b Razorblade romance

O-O-O-O

Buffy, whispering sweetly – "Spike. Wake up."

Spike opened his eyes and groaned when he found his wrists chained to the top posts in a four post bed. It was the same one Angelus and Drusilla shared when they were last in Sunnydale. Buffy and Faith were lying on either side of him.

Spike – "If you're going to kill me, just bloody do it already."

Buffy – "Now, I really should tan your hide. But Faith thought of a much better use for you."

Spike, grumpily – "What are you talking about?"

Buffy and Faith pinned him with wicked, predator smiles.

Buffy – "We're gonna have some fun. We just have to wait for the rest to arrive because it's bad manners to start without everyone present."

Spike, confused – "Start what?"

Buffy, with a pair of fingers walking across his shirt – "Start your initiation. I think you'll like it. It involves sex. A lot of it and with a lot of us."

Spike actually looked scared at that.

Spike – "Hold on, you mean.. both of you want to..?"

Buffy and Faith nodded happily at that.

Spike frowned at them and shook his head clear with a small laugh, trying to get thoughts of lust out of it.

Spike – "Oh come on. You guys are the white hats. White hats don't have group sex. The bad guys do that, not you. What are you trying to pull?"

Faith and Buffy shared a surprised and much rehearsed look.

Faith – "He doesn't know?"

Buffy – "Obviously not."

Faith – "But how? I thought you said he's been around a while."

Buffy – "He has. I would've at least thought Angelus would've told him."

Spike – "Told me what?"

Buffy – "Spike. When we're not out slaying vampires and fighting you, we're screwing our brains out. Not just me and Faith but all of us. Every night we go out, knowing it could be our last. With that kind of pressure, something's got to give."

Spike, not believing them – "You're pulling my leg."

Buffy pulled some hair away from her neck to expose a set of ragged bite marks on her shoulder.

Buffy – "See these?"

Spike frowned as he didn't recognize the pattern.

Spike – "Those aren't from a vampire."

Buffy – "No, they're not. They're from Oz. You know, Willow's boyfriend. He got a little frisky with me one full moon and one thing lead to another. He's got a matching set from me too. You ever been bitten by a werewolf? Oh man, the rush is like nothing you've ever felt before. It's so hot and wild and the pain, ooh, it's so sweet. It just makes me melt so bad."

Spike gulped and whined a little as his jeans got a little uncomfortable.

Spike, still skeptical – "I'm afraid that I'm not going to believe that without proof."

Faith, smiling wickedly at Buffy – "He wants proof."

Buffy, with a similar smile – "Then I guess we're gonna have to give him it."

Then they leant towards each other, over Spike and shared a long, soulful kiss together.

Spike watched and stared as their mouths opened slightly and their tongues came out to play with each other. Faith brought her hands up to Buffy's chest to pull her closer and groped a feel at the same time.

Suddenly the door opened and Willow appeared in it, with a look of shock on her face.

Buffy and Faith parted quickly.

Buffy, trying to hide her embarrassment – "Sorry, Willow. We almost started without you. But it's Spike's fault. Naughty Spike."

Buffy playfully slapped him on the thigh to accentuate his naughtiness.

Faith – "Come on in, Red. You can have the first gallop while we watch if you want."

Willow gulped and tried to act confident – "Uh, yes. I think I will. Umm."

Buffy looked at Willow and patted Spike on the belt buckle, a signal for Willow.

Buffy – "Your seat's right here."

Willow wordlessly crawled up onto the bed and sat down on Spike's lap with a very strong sense of detachment while Buffy and Faith tore open Spike's shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere. With his shirt gone, the slayer's let their small hands roam over his bare chest and through his short blonde fleecy hair.

Faith, whispering into Spikes ear – "We're going to make you moan until you can't moan no more."

Spike was already moaning. This way too much for him in his inebriated state and despite how old a vampire he was, he'd never been with three girls at the same time. At least not three willing girls.

Buffy, whispering into his other ear – "You want us. I can smell it on you."

Spike – "Girls, there's only so much teasing a man can take."

Willow placed her hands on his chest to steady her self and took in a deep breath.

Willow – "Don't worry. The teasing is over."

Spike looked at her in want and it was almost enough to throw Willow off what she came there to do.

Willow, incanting words of power – "Zu ihzu kad gahs-an si uri a ni ingh"

Spike's eyes shot open wide as the invisible spell enveloped him and he instinctively fought against it. Willow closed her eyes and forgot about the material world, focusing only on the struggle within.

Willow buckled over in pain and her head collided down on Spike's chest. Then she felt arms on her shoulder's keeping her upright.

Fighting through the pain, Willow focused more of her power to dominate the vampire but that only brought her closer to more pain. It was like trying to wrestle with a blackberry patch.

With a low, pained growl she exerted more and more power, summoning it from places unknown and sapping her reserves.

By now, Spike had already run himself dry and the spell wrapped around him like a smothering blanket.

With the spell finished, Willow stopped straining and went limp.

Buffy, horrified – "Oh God, Willow. Say something."

Willow, grumpily – "Faith. You owe me a blue bangle."

Faith chuckled and Buffy gave them both a weird look.

Buffy – "Willow. Are you okay?"

Willow nodded slightly and Buffy hugged her tightly with relief, kissing all over her face as she did.

Normally Willow would have had Buffy tone it down a notch but right now her cool body pressed against her was a relief. She was just so sweaty and tired that she felt like she had sunstroke.

Faith – "So did it work?"

Willow opened her eyes and blinked them a few times as feeling came flooding back to her body in the form of pins and needles.

Willow – "Umm, yeah. I think so. No, I'm certain it did."

With Buffy's help, Willow righted herself up to look at Spike. He looked just as wiped out as she felt. His head was lolling around as the after effects of the spell washed through him.

Willow – "Spike. You will do everything I order you to. Is that true?"

Spike – "Yes."

Then Spike frowned and looked around as if wondering who just said that.

Willow – "Spike. From now on, you will be on our side. You won't do evil. You won't kill people for no good reason. You won't run away to where we can't find you. You got that?"

Spike – "Yes… bloody hell, what did you do to me?"

Faith – "It's just a little spell to keep you in line."

Spike groaned and sobbed a little.

Spike – "Just when I thought my life can't get any worse."

Faith, unclipping his belt – "Buck up, kiddo. Your life's about to get a helluva lot better."

Buffy frowned – "Okay, Faith. That's enough teasing for one day. Let's leave Spike alone now."

Faith, smirking – "Who said anything about teasing?"

Buffy looked down at Spike then back up at Faith and shook her head, growling.

Faith – "Hey, he's mine. It was my idea to get Willow."

Buffy kept growling and lunged at Faith, rolling off the bed with her as Willow looked on in horror.

Willow – "Buffy! Stop that!"

But Buffy didn't stop. Instead her game face turned on and she struggled to bite at Faith in the neck.

Faith, with her own game face turning on – "Bitch!"

Faith head butted Buffy away and both of them got to their feet. Buffy lashed out with a kick which hit Faith in the gut and slammed her against the wall. As Buffy followed through, Faith slugged her back hard across the chin, splitting Buffy's lip.

Buffy snarled and tackled Faith around the shoulders, trying to throw her to the ground but neither could get the right leverage for that, so instead, they bounced off the wall and broke the plaster. Eventually, Faith slipped out of Buffy's hold and pulled on the back of Buffy's shirt and slammed her into the wall again and then slammed her into the ground.

When Faith reached down to beat her some more, Buffy got a good handful of Faith's hair and pulled, causing the brunette to yelp in pain and claw at Buffy. Faith yanked on Buffy's shirt again and it tore straight off the blonde.

Buffy – "Bitch! I liked that shirt!"

Buffy pulled tight on Faith's hair, bringing the brunettes face horizontal and then lashed out with her other hand. Buffy's nails raked across Faith's, bringing up three red lines of blood across her face.

Faith gasped in pain as she pushed away and brought her hand up to her cheek. When she pulled her fingers away, she saw her own blood on her finger tips.

Willow – "Okay. This has gone too far! We need to stop."

Spike, enjoying the show – "Actually, this is kinda fun. Let them go at it."

Faith lashed out with her own claws and cut Buffy across the stomach once but missed on the second swing when Buffy moved in and dodged under her arm. With Faith's back exposed, Buffy scratched her along the length of her back, causing Faith to stumble over in pain with a yelp.

With Faith on her hands and knees, Buffy leant over and grabbed her pants from behind around the belt. Buffy lifted her up by the belt and threw her up into the air and into the wall again.

Buffy didn't let her rest though. Once Faith hit the ground, Buffy grabbed Faith by the hair again and pulled her up onto her knees so she could look her in the face.

With a sudden rise up, Faith hooked an arm under one of Buffy's legs and ran into the wall, pinning Buffy against it and off the ground. Then Buffy's eyes went wide as if she was just stabbed. They looked each other in the eyes for a few long hard seconds then they smashed their mouths together in a hungry, violent kiss.

Willow stopped objecting and was just flabbergasted at the change in actions. Then she realized Faith had one of her hands under Buffy's skirt and the shoving motion Faith's elbow was making was just too much for the shy redhead.

Willow, starting to hyperventilate – "Oh gosh. I'll just.. be going!"

And with that, she bolted out of the room and slammed the door behind her. Then she rested against the door as if scared they would come after her.

Behind her, she could hear Buffy moaning sweetly through the door as Faith did who knows what to her.

Dawn, surprising Willow – "Did it work?"

Willow gave Dawn a "don't scare me like that" glare and then nodded.

Willow – "Yes. It worked."

Dawn sighed – "Well, that's great and all but I really hope Buffy doesn't do that to every boy I bring home."

Willow frowned at Dawn but decided not to ask about the back story.

Willow, about to leave – "Well, that's my good deed for the day."

Dawn, quickly following her – "I'll come with. To, you know, protect you and stuff."

Willow frowned at the young vampire, not entirely comfortable in their presence.

Willow – "And what exactly would you do if we ran into trouble?"

Dawn – "Umm. Run, I guess. But I thought maybe you'd like some company while you're running for your life. Besides, I think I'd rather be somewhere else when the mattress parakeets attack."

Dawn tilted her head towards the door where hot and sweat-inducing sounds were coming from.

Willow, sighing – "Fine. Let's go. But you remember my boyfriend, don't you? Oz the werewolf?"

Dawn nodded slightly.

Willow – "Just remember that you if you do anything shifty to me then he'll make you regret it."

Dawn considered this for a second and then grinned happily and flounced up next to Willow as they walked out the front door.

Dawn closing the door behind her – "Then I've got nothing to be worried about."

O-O-O-O

It was some time later when Buffy stirred awake to find herself in an unfamiliar room.

She moved slightly and winced at the coarseness of the fabric she was wearing. It felt like she was wearing a potato sack. When she looked down at her body it looked like she was too. She was dressed in some sort of crude dress made out of what appeared to be hessian mesh.

Not only that but her arm itched like crazy so she scratched at it without thinking. She immediately regretted it as her arm started bleeding. She blinked around in the darkness but for some reason her vampire enhanced vision wasn't working up to specs. Seeing moonlight coming in from a doorway, she got up and walked towards it. Her foot knocked over a wooden bowl or something but she thankfully didn't stumble. Instead she just cursed under her breath and tried to figure out what was going on.

Once she was in the moonlight, she looked at her arm and gasped when she saw a string of ugly blue boils growing along the blue veins in her arm.

Someone stirred behind her and Buffy turned around to see who it was.

A sleepy male voice Buffy didn't recognize spoke out with some sort of strong Gaelic accent.

Unknown man – "Don't aggravate that wound, dearie. It shall only get worse from here on out."

Buffy stepped back from the doorway, nodding slightly.

Buffy, confused – "Yeah. Okay. I won't aggravate the wound."

Then she found herself in even more confusion when she saw that the doorway was part of a small single roomed stone hut in the middle of nowhere. She spun around for signs of civilisation but couldn't find any.

Buffy, under her breath – "Where am I?"

The man inside groaned slightly and got out of bed but didn't come out into the light.

Unknown man – "It seems you're in another spell, Dearie. Why don't you just come back to bed and be done with it?"

But Buffy wouldn't be done with it. She turned and ran instead.

She hardly got thirty feet before she stumbled over something in the night and almost fell on her face. She strained to get to her feet once more and found herself weaker than she normally would be.

Lights flashed in front of her eyes and she found herself blinded. She gasped when she felt something wet and strange roll over her belly.

When she tried to push it away she found herself somewhere else.

Faith, with a worried tone – "Buffy? You alright?"

Buffy blinked a few times as her head cleared.

Buffy – "Whoa. That was a trippy dream."

Faith frowned with her human face on – "Guess you didn't like that."

Buffy squinted at Faith in confusion.

Buffy – "Didn't like what?"

Faith grinned and leant over again to lick the three red raw claw marks on Buffy's stomach.

Buffy gasped a little more and then giggled and lay back down on the bed.

Buffy – "No. That's pretty nice. It hurts just right."

Faith – "Thought you'd like that. You're really into kink, aren't you?"

Buffy, with her eyes closed in contentment – "I think I like a little pain."

Buffy could feel Faith's cool breath huff against her skin as she chuckled.

Faith – "I noticed. You want me to go lower?"

Buffy – "Mmm, not yet. Tease me some more please."

Faith – "Pity. Would've liked a little Buffy for breakfast."

Buffy took Faith's head in her hands and pulled her away from her skin. Faith didn't struggle, ready to lick wherever she was directed. But Buffy didn't move her. Instead Buffy cut a fresh red trail up her belly with one of her own talon like nails.

Buffy – "I've got your breakfast right here."

Faith's mouth watered as Buffy served up her own form of breakfast in bed. After seeing the hunger burning in the Faith's bedroom eyes Buffy let go of Faith's head and the brunette dove in, slurping up blood with long, strong strokes of her tongue.

Faith – "Next time please let me cut you."

Buffy – "You're going to be the death of me."

Faith – "Can you think of a better way to go?"

Buffy closed her eyes again and enjoyed the deliciously wicked sensation of feeding a sister slayer with her own blood. Faith alternated between long luxurious strokes of her tongue and then pursing her lips over the wound with short powerful sucks which drew out bite sized portions of Buffy's lifeblood and made Buffy flinch as Faith pushed her just slightly over her threshold of enjoyable pain.

Buffy bucked a little and her head landed on Spike who was still handcuffed to the bed posts.

He stirred awake and groaned as the hangover of all time hit him between the eyes.

The first thing Spike realized was that he handcuffed to the bed. The second thing he noticed was Buffy snuggling up next to him.

Since when did vampires snuggle?

Hell, since when did slayers snuggle?

Nothing about her should be snuggling up next to him but with that look of ecstasy on her face he wasn't going to kick her out of bed just yet. He strained a little to look down and found a mass of dark hair moving around her lower portion.

Spike grunted in concentration and for the life of him he couldn't remember what the heck happened last night that would've landed him in this situation. Actually, since he was chained up and at the mercy of the Slayer, this was probably going to end up being not only his worst morning after ever but also his last.

Buffy, upon realizing Spike had woken up – "Oh. Sorry Spike. Forgot you were there."

Faith finished cleaning Buffy's wound and crawled up the bed to give Buffy a big blood coated kiss.

Spike looked down and realized that whatever happened last night, he was still wearing his underwear. Perhaps someone put his briefs back on for his own dignity.

Buffy, dreamily – "Last night was the most unbelievable night of my life. Faith, you're so good to me. You're a dream. A goddess. You make me want to write poetry about you."

Faith looked away as if blushing then turned back and gave Buffy a sparkling grin.

Faith, giving her a small kiss – "And you're very sweet."

Buffy – "I know. I can taste myself on your tongue."

Faith chuckled and got off the bed.

Faith – "I'm getting some real food. You want."

Buffy, rolling on top of Spike – "I want. I always want."

This just got another chuckle out of Faith and she stopped to look back at Buffy straddling Spike.

Faith – "Damn sister. Don't you ever get enough?"

Buffy – "Haven't yet."

Faith shook her head is dismay. Faith really enjoyed sex but Buffy was something else entirely. Once you got her turned on she never stopped until her batteries ran out completely.

Buffy, reached back and tugged playfully on Spike's underwear.

Buffy - "It's funny. How did I know you were a briefs man?"

Spike, wincing – "Don't take this the wrong way but what the bloody hell did I do last night? And who the hell was that?"

Buffy looked at Spike oddly – "That's Faith. The other Slayer… You really don't remember last night?"

Spike blinked at her.

Spike – "Other slayer? What do you mean the other slayer? The other slayer is black."

Buffy sighed – "No. You don't remember? Kendra died. This is the new girl."

Spike looked over at Faith walking back into the room with a few new blood packs.

Spike – "But she can't be. She's a vampire. Did.. did you turn her?"

Faith, plopping her ass down on the bed – "Nah. Buffy didn't turn me. Though, I would've really preferred she do me than my actual Sire."

Buffy, complimented – "Aww, that's so sweet."

Spike – "Yes. This definitely tops it. This is without a doubt my worst ever morning after. So before you stake me, just tell me, how was it?"

Faith - "How was what?"

Spike - "Last night. I can't remember a bloody thing."

Buffy, nodding – "He can't remember."

Faith – "Let's just say you didn't stand and deliver as much as we'd like. I was disappointed with you in other ways too. With a name like Spike, I was expecting a little more."

Faith pulled back his briefs and looked under them then sighed a little as she let them go.

Faith – "Yup. Big disappointment. Or should I say a small disappointment?"

Spike – "Give a guy a break. I'm not feeling very sexy right now. I've got a splitting headache."

Faith ridiculing Spike – "That's a girl's excuse. Guy's don't get headaches."

Spike looked at her dumbfounded.

Spike – "What?"

Faith – "But at least you two make a change of pace from ugly hoof for hand vampires. Buff, blood?"

Buffy took one of the blood packs and bit into it without hesitation. As she drank, she looked down at Spike with mischievous eyes. With one of the thumbs, she gently opened his mouth and then leant down and smothered his mouth with the blood pack she was already draining.

Eager for some nutrition, Spike bit into the blood pack and started draining it too. Before long, the pack was empty and Buffy threw it aside to show that both of the blondes had blood covered mouths from the shared meal. Buffy gripped Spikes head and started licking it clean of left over blood.

Faith, amused – "Damn again, Buffy! You really are a freak."

Buffy stopped licking and looked at Faith with rapturous glee.

Buffy – "I just.. I just feel so great. You know what I don't get. How every time I'm with a human I feel guilty about it? But I can do whatever sick, twisted thing I want with a vampire and it just makes me feel sooo good. You know?"

Faith shook her head.

Spike offered up – "I'm drawing a blank too. And why would you want to have sex with a human?"

Faith – "Why wouldn't we?"

Spike – "Because we're vampires! Oh bloody hell, you lot are hopeless."

Faith – "So? We're vampires. Big woop. Actually, I haven't gotten the chance to try a human since I've changed but I don't see what the problem is."

Buffy, chuckling – "Faith, they feel so awesome. They're so warm and soft and responsive. Vampires might be easy but humans are so much better. It's a pity they're so fragile. Although, Faith, the things you can do with that tongue of yours, wow, I've never felt anything like that. You're incredible!"

Faith – "I could give you some pointers if you want."

Buffy – "I'd like that. Umm, if it's okay with both of you, I'd just love to screw your brains out all day long. I've never gotten this sort of chance before and I don't want to miss it."

Faith leaned over and kissed Buffy on the shoulder.

Faith – "Relax, B. We're not going anywhere. Well, actually, I'm going to have a shower. Then I'm going to watch some tube. I'm still a little sore from last night."

Buffy – "Then I'll have to make do with Spike."

Faith got up and looked back at the blondes for a moment.

Faith – "Just a thought, B. You like being tied up?"

Buffy – "Umm, I don't know. I told you that last night."

Faith – "Well, now's your time to find out. I'll tell you what. I'll come back in an hour and uncuff whoever's still tied to the bed. How's that sound?"

Then Buffy looked down at Spike and grinned.

Buffy – "How about it Spike? Wanna chain me up?"

Spike looked up at her in confusion.

Spike, hesitant – "Uh, sure. Sounds like good times."

Faith grinned as Buffy looked around for the key with a perplexed look and then frowned with some concern.

Faith – "Uh, Buffy…"

Buffy, with a raised eyebrow – "Don't tell me there's no key."

Faith – "No. It's not that. The key's on the dresser. But where did you get those blue marks from?"

Buffy chuckled as she touched the bruises on her face – "Probably from the hot little powerhouse with a mean right hook."

Faith, shaking her head – "No. Not those. I mean those things on your back. I don't think they're bruises."

Buffy frowned in confusion.

Buffy – "Blue marks? Where?"

Faith walked over to Buffy and touched the small constellation of bright blue welts on her bare back.

Faith – "There. Right there. You don't feel that?"

Buffy didn't reply.

Faith – "Come on. How can you not feel that? They're kinda lumpy."

Then Buffy glared at Faith with icy blue eyes.

Buffy, growling – "Vampire."

The Buffy knocked Faith away and pounced off the bed to attack her some more.

Faith backed away with her hands up, confused at Buffy's sudden jump towards violence.

Faith – "Buffy. I think we did enough of this last night. I'm not in the mood anymore."

Buffy looked around the room for something and then found what she wanted in the form of a chair. With one swift kick, she broke the chair into fragments. From within the pile of wood, she reached down and pulled out one of the sharper looking pieces.

Faith – "Whoa! That's a little too kinky, even for me. I'm not into that sort of roleplay. So just put the stake down and-"

Faith was interrupted by Buffy rushing forward to stake her. Faith caught the stake before it met its mark and the two of them span around and slammed into the wall with the force of Buffy's attack. Spike perked up and watched the battle with enthusiasm.

Faith clenched her hand and the makeshift stake splintered under her grip. Then she brought an elbow up and bounced Buffy's head off the wall.

Buffy stumbled back stunned and looked at Faith as if trying to figure out who she was.

Faith – "Buffy. You don't want to do this."

Buffy glared at Faith then jumped forward, tucking up into a backwards somersault and then springing out of it to land both feet on Faith's upper body. The resulting impact launched Faith off her feet, smashing her through the door and out into the hallway.

Faith groaned and she got up, picking up a sharp looking piece of door frame as she did.

Faith, determined – "That's it. You're so going down."

A few doors along, Dawn rolled over on the couch and groaned as she tried to block out the sounds of fighting with a pillow wrapping around her ears.

Dawn, whining – "Why can't they just go to sleep?"

Back in the bedroom, Faith and Buffy were trading blows like no one's business.

Faith – "Spike. You wanna help out here?"

Spike, smirking – "Wish I could but I'm kinda tied up."

Faith pulled on Buffy and the two of the danced across the room to collide with the bed. Faith struggled and bent Buffy backwards over the bed.

Faith – "How about now?"

Spike reached out and wrapped his feet around Buffy's neck, pulling her onto the bed even more.

Buffy struggled to get free from the other two vampires but when Spike got one of his knees wrapped around her neck she was stuck good.

Faith screamed in fury and clobbered Buffy in the face like a punching bag, over and over.

When Buffy finally stopped struggling and went limp, Faith stopped too.

Faith, flexing one of her sore hands – "Ow."

Spike – "That was good for me. Was it good for you too?"

Faith, wiped - "Yeah. It was okay. You know, I think people often overlook how many problems can be solved with sex and violence."

Spike – "That is just so true. Umm, but what are you going to do with her?"

Faith – "Chain her up and sic Giles on her."

Spike – "I was thinking more along the lines of dusting her but I'll take what I can get."

O-O-O-O

Scene – Giles' bedroom, early morning.

Giles was snoring lightly when someone hemmed. Giles jolted awake and squinted into the darkness to see a short, shadowed figure at the end of his bed.

Buffy - "Hello watcher. Sorry for waking you but this is important."

Giles – "Buffy? What in blazes are you doing in my bedroom?"

Buffy - "Remember what Xander told you? You can't trust the council. They're lying to you."

Giles, with his face scrunching up in confusion – "About what?"

"About me."

Giles reached over to his side table and turned on the bedside light. Once he did, he turned back and found himself alone in his bedroom.

Giles, looking around the room – "Buffy?"

Then he got out of bed and stood up in his pyjamas, looking down the stairs to the floor below.

Giles, calling out – "Buffy. This isn't funny."

Then the bedside phone rang and Giles jumped slightly.

Cautiously, he picked the phone up.

Giles, politely into the phone – "Hello, Giles residence."

Faith, on the other line – "Giles. Buffy's flipped her lid!"

Giles – "I think I've just realised that myself."

Faith – "Huh?"

Giles – "I just saw her. She was acting very peculiar."

There was a long pause on the other line.

Giles – "Faith? Are you still there?"

Faith – "What do you mean you just saw her? We've got her chained up at the mansion. I'm looking at her right now."

Giles – "Uh, oh, I must have imagined it. I could've sworn.. I must be getting old."

Faith – "Oh-kay. Anyway, we've got her under control but you watcher guys wanted to know if there was anything wrong with Buffy so I've called you up and now I'm telling you that there is."

Giles – "Yes. Quite. I'll be over shortly. I'm sure you can keep her under control?"

Faith – "We've got it covered. Out."

With that said Faith cut the connection and Giles sighed, trying to wipe the sleepy feeling out of his face.

With a yawn, he turned towards the bathroom and found a book resting on his dresser next to where he kept his glasses.

Giles walked over to his dresser and casually picked up the book, not remembering leaving one there last night. With his other hand he picked up his glasses and set them on his face. The book was unfamiliar and looked old and unkempt.

He opened the book and it was indeed old and unkempt but not entirely unfamiliar. It was Lambronazi's diary. Not a copy written in calligraphic letters but the original, unadulterated chicken scratchings and doodles of an undereducated girl who barely knew how to hold an ink quill properly.

This was the original and Giles just happened to find it in his bedroom after getting a vision of Buffy warning him of the council. Meanwhile Buffy was being restrained across to keep herself from hurting herself and others. It was no coincidence surely but what was the significance?

Giles put down the book to open it and scanned through it, noting how the writing became clearer and more orderly as time moved on but the doodles never stopped. Lambronazi obviously liked to draw as many other slayers did. As the Giles came towards the end of the book, the order was lost once more and the script was swept up in a torrent of chaos and madness. Obviously this was when the visions started for the poor girl.

Needing to be somewhere else, Giles took a short cut and moved to the last few pages of the book. On the last line of the last page, there were words written in modern English.

Giles, reading from the book – "How did I die? My watcher. You must find that out and only then you will know the face of truth."

Giles frowned at the riddle and then noticed that on the opposite page, there was an ink drawn picture of Buffy. It was very well done and Giles remembered something Robson said about their being a woodcut made of Buffy in Lambronazi's diary. But when he read the title under it, it didn't translate to the Abomination as Buffy was usually referred to. It held the promise of something vastly more chilling.

Giles, reading the underscored title for the drawing – "Self portrait of Lambronazi."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	32. 11c A shot in the dark

O-O-O-O

Scene – Outside the vampire's mansion, an hour or so later.

The morning sun had come up and Cordelia's sports car pulled up outside the mansion. Cordelia was driving while Willow and Xander acted in a passenger capacity. Once it was parked all three of them got out and headed towards the mansion.

Xander, wiping his eyes – "Figures. Buffy's back and of course she's in trouble."

Willow, chidingly – "Xander. Don't talk about her that way."

Xander, as he walked in the front door – "I'm not dissing her. It's just the truth. Trouble hangs around that girl like a bad – AAH!"

Xander backpedaled and screamed in a girly fashion when he found Spike standing in front of him, shirtless and smelling of absinthe.

Spike, smirking – "Good to see I haven't lost my touch."

Willow – "Oh! That's right. Guys, I spelled Spike last night."

Xander's eyes swiveled back and forth between Spike and Willow in shock.

Xander – "You-you what!"

Willow – "I cast that obedience spell on him so now he has to do whatever I order him to."

Xander – "Then order him to jump outside into the morning sun! Are you crazy? What was going through your head when you decided to do this? How come you didn't consult with the rest of us?"

Faith, wrapping her arms around Spike from behind – "Because she consulted with me. I was the one who asked her to do it."

Willow – "Besides. He was chained down and drunk and unfed. He couldn't really offer much resistance to the spell. Not really."

Xander to Faith – "But why? You don't even know Spike. You don't know how much trouble he can cause."

Faith – "I was told he's a decent fighter and he killed two slayers. Rather have him on my side than just a pile of dust. Besides, Buffy's got Dawn so I think I deserve a toy."

Spike, batting her hands away – "Hey. I'm not a toy."

Faith, smirking – "Hardly a man, are you?"

Giles, impatiently – "You two. Stop that, please?"

Faith, smirking – "Yes, sir. We'll tone it down."

The three newcomers looked over to the couch where Buffy was resting with her legs chained together and her arms handcuffed behind her back. Faith had dressed Buffy in a black, backless halter top and some black jeans when she was unconscious. Now that she had woken up, she wasn't in such a combative mood and she wasn't really chained down to anything either. Instead, she looked quite comfortable with her head resting in Dawn's lap as her childe combed her hair.

Xander – "Buffy. Are you okay?"

Buffy, sounding ill – "I don't feel too good."

Cordelia – "I don't blame you. You look like you just went through a war."

Faith – "Actually those bruises on her face, that was from me."

Willow, skeptically – "From when she attacked you?"

Faith – "Hey, don't give me that tone. She DID attack me. She tried to stake me."

Willow – "Why would she do that?"

Faith – "I don't know. Ask her."

Buffy – "I don't remember doing that at all but then my memories been kinda iffy the past few hours. I keep having these hallucinations. They're so real but it's like I'm someone else when I have them."

Faith – "Yeah. Someone else who wants to kill me."

Willow – "So what do we know?"

Giles – "Not a lot. Or rather I should say nothing useful quite yet. This morning I had an unusual visitor. It's possible I was dreaming but I don't believe so now. I woke up to find Buffy at the foot of my bed, saying something I didn't quite catch. When I turned the light on she was gone but this remained."

Giles lifted the book in his lap slightly to show its significance.

Faith – "And I told him that Buffy couldn't have been in his bedroom because she was with us when I phoned him up five minutes later."

Giles – "For your information it was more like one minute later. Whoever was in my bedroom, it wasn't Buffy. And this is where the tale turns darker. This book, it is Lambronazi's original diary. This was thought to have been lost in the sands of time but here it is right here."

Xander – "I don't get what the big deal is."

Giles – "The big deal is this."

Giles folded it out the last page and showed them the picture of Buffy.

Cordelia – "Hey, that's not bad. Did you draw that?"

Giles, snapping at her slightly – "No, I did not draw it! Lambronazi did. She was a prophet and this was a prophetic drawing. But underneath the picture, it is titled as a self portrait, as if Lambronazi was drawing herself."

Buffy – "Which is more likely. Cos my nose doesn't look like that."

Giles – "But this can only mean one thing. That Buffy will eventually turn into Lambronazi. Not only that but she's going to turn into her tonight."

Buffy – "Excuse me?"

Faith – "Yeah. Pass that by us one more time."

Giles sighed and turned back to a page he had bookmarked.

Giles – "The watchers council obviously had kept huge tracts of this diary secret from me for a reason. Right here, this passage states… on the night of St. Vigeous when the something-something and the abomination comes to age and it shall have been purified by the crucibles of fire and chaos. Only then will it be worthy to receive its true destiny. The chaff will be shred from the wheat until only the seed of virtue remains. The chaff will be cast into the times forgotten and into the darkness that bore it. Then I shall receive my prize, the golden age in which I shall be born into, et cetera, et cetera, rhubarb, rhubarb."

Xander, frowning – "Umm, is anyone confused? Please tell me I'm not the only one."

Buffy – "You're not the only one. Did she just call me chaff? Should I be insulted?"

Giles – "It would seem that tonight, some event will transpire and Lambronazi will be reborn in Buffy. And the Buffy we know will cease to exist."

Buffy – "Oh. That's not so good."

Xander – "But um, what was that about a golden age? I don't mean to sound callous Buffy but maybe it'd be a good idea to go along with this if everything turned out for the good, right?"

Buffy grumbled – "Maybe. I'll think about it. And hey, it's not like I haven't sacrificed myself for the greater good before. Why stop now?"

Giles hemmed uncomfortably – "Actually, this golden age, I'm not entirely sure you could call it one."

Buffy – "Why not?"

Spike – "I thought it would be obvious. If this Lambronazi bitch comes along and makes everything sunshine and rainbows then people will get bored. You don't want to admit it but evil makes everything more interesting."

Giles – "No. It's not that Spike. And for your information, I could live out the rest of my days quite happily if I never saw another evil vampire. No, this is something else entirely. Now where was it?"

Giles flicked through the book until he came to the passage he wanted.

Giles – "Arr yes. Here it is. A description of the golden age… A world of wonders. A paradise like unto Eden itself. The colors are so bright and magic is everywhere. There are boxes of light and sound in which theatres may be watched. Libraries fit inside books with only a single piece of luminous paper to each of them. The food of the gods is held in metal pliable enough to tear with one's hands… Need I go on?"

Cordelia – "Okay. I think I got most of that. Boxes of light and sound are TVs. A book with a single piece of luminous paper is a computer. But what's that thing about food of the gods?"

Xander sighed and pulled a chocolate bar out of his back pocket.

Xander – "She's talking about chocolate! Chocolate is the food of the gods and it's packaged in a shiny wrapper. But I don't get it. We've already got all those things. There's nothing golden agey about any of that."

Giles – "Not to you who takes it for granted but to a teenage girl over a thousand years ago all this would be considered miraculous."

Spike – "If not condemned outright as infernal blasphemy by the church."

Giles – "Indeed. Oh dear. I can't believe I just agreed with you."

Spike – "I know. It isn't sitting right with me either."

Dawn to Xander, a little too loud – "Are you going to eat that?"

Xander looked at Dawn who was looking hungrily at the chocolate bar in Xander's hand. Xander moved the bar side to side a little and Dawn's eyes tracked it with the eyes of a predator.

Xander – "Umm, split it?"

Dawn, quickly – "Sure!"

Xander, breaking the chocolate bar in half – "It funny. I didn't know vampires liked chocolate."

Spike – "Everyone likes chocolate, twat."

Buffy – "Xander, I've even eaten chocolate in front of you before."

Xander, tossing half the bar to Dawn – "I thought you just did that for appearances."

Faith – "No, it's true. Chocolate still tastes just as good now as when I was alive. Which is strange because most food just tastes bland. It's a pity vampires can't live off the stuff. Though, I think Dawn wouldn't mind trying. I caught her eating a moth before."

Everyone looked to Dawn who was hurriedly eating the chocolate she was given and trying to be part of the background.

Buffy, ignoring her unusual childe – "So Giles, you're saying that this golden age Lambronazi was talking about, it's not really a golden age? It's just the present?"

Giles – "So it would seem."

Buffy – "So if she, uh, gets reborn in me or whatever, I'll just die for no good reason?"

Giles – "Apparently."

Buffy – "Then I say screw it. Let's stop it from happening. Call me selfish but I'd rather not die just so loopy diary girl can vegan out on the couch and watch Walker Texas Ranger while eating chocolate all day."

Faith – "Don't forget the part where she'll try to kill me for no good reason."

Giles – "Uh, I'm not sure if we can stop this."

Buffy groaned.

Buffy – "Giles. You're a brain. I'm not a brain. You do the thinking. You and Willow, you're my brains. I'm kinda wasted right now but even I can see we've got clues here. Such as the fact that someone supplied you with this diary so that you could stop this from happening. And what's the deal with my back? It's getting really itchy."

Faith tilted Buffy over on the couch a little to look at the blue welts on her back. As she did, she winced in sympathy.

Faith – "Buffy's getting worse. Giles, what is this stuff?"

Giles, analyzing Buffy's sores – "I.. I don't know. I've never heard of anything that could affect a vampire like that."

Faith – "It smells funky. Like a demon or something."

Xander – "Maybe it's something Buffy brought back with her from hell. Talking of which, how come we haven't even questioned the whole part where Buffy just came back from hell? From what I understood, it was supposed to be a one way trip."

Willow, scathingly – "Xander. That's not helping."

Xander – "Right. Because that's got nothing to do with what is going on right now. Face it, Willow. Buffy was sent back for a reason and whatever happens to her tonight, that's the reason."

Cordelia, scathingly – "If you ask me maybe a replacement for Buffy would be a good thing."

Buffy – "What's that supposed to mean."

Xander – "She means that we can't really trust you."

Buffy – "Look, I know things got a little crazy but guys, I've always been on your side. That's never changed."

Xander, very coldly – "It changed for Kendra."

Buffy – "What do you.. Oh, uh, look. I didn't kill Kendra."

Xander – "Buffy. We were there."

Buffy, angrily – "But I didn't kill Kendra! I didn't! I wouldn't!"

Xander, angrily too – "Don't lie to us! We saw you draining her."

Buffy, quieter – "I.. I didn't kill her. I came in and she was already dead and I was hungry. I couldn't stop myself."

Spike – "Yeah. Those slayers are hard to resist."

Xander lashed out and bopped Spike on the chin, sending the master vampire down to the ground.

From the ground, Spike rubbed his chin and blinked at Xander in surprise.

Spike – "Bloody hell. Are you popping back steroids?"

Xander, dismissively – "Something like that."

Spike, smirking as he got up – "You know I hear that stuff shrinks your manhood."

Faith, smirking – "So that's what happened to you, Spike."

Giles – "Can we have some civility, please? Anyone who doesn't want to help please leave now!"

Xander and Cordelia looked at Buffy for a few moments and they both sat down quietly.

Xander – "Look, I don't know what's really going on here but I want to get to the bottom of it."

Cordelia – "Me too. But I still it's gross that Buffy drank from Kendra."

Buffy – "I was really starving. Angel drained me until I almost died. If I didn't drink something I probably would have died. When I found her, she was dead. Just dead and lying there. All I could smell was her blood. Her incredibly tasty slayer blood. In my mind, I couldn't find any reason not to drain her and I wanted to so badly. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking straight at the time."

Xander and Cordelia shared a look and both of them sighed.

Xander – "I'm sorry for shooting at you with a crossbow."

Cordelia, rolling her eyes – "And I'm sorry for running you over with my car so many times."

Buffy squirmed around in her chains eagerly while Dawn stopped her from falling off the couch onto her face.

Buffy, hopefully – "Hugs all around?"

Xander, shaking his head – "No. No hugs. We've just said sorry but hugs are a few levels above that."

Buffy pouted and Dawn reached down and hugged her gently.

Buffy – "Thanks Dawn. You're the best childe money can buy."

Xander, with a smirk – "Besides. Hugging a bound girl is kinda strange."

Dawn – "Hey!"

Buffy – "Yeah. You take that back."

Xander, almost laughing – "Oh, okay. It's not strange at all. Happy?"

Buffy nodded happily while Dawn pouted a little.

Buffy – "Oh. Giles! Show Willow the post-it note."

Giles, as Willow looked at him curiously – "I found one of those abhorrent little postit notes glued to the inside cover of the diary. I'm not sure it means anything but you're free to decipher it."

Giles pulled the postit note free and handed it to Willow. Willow read the postit note and then pulled her laptop out of its carry case.

Willow, as she flipped up the antennae on her wireless modem – "I think it's a web address.

Giles blinked at her with a perplexed look.

Giles – "A web address?"

Willow – "You know. An internet web site. Watchers dot D E slash archives. D-E stands for Deutschland, which is German for Germany. So yeah, I think it's some website in Germany."

Giles – "A website in Germany? As in Munich, Germany?"

Willow, a little confused – "Well, maybe. Munich IS part of Germany. Why Munich precisely?"

Giles – "I got a very strange phone call a few months ago. It was from a group of watchers in Munich asking some very strange questions about Buffy. They wanted to know what she looked like."

Buffy – "I don't remember that."

Xander – "But then you probably don't remember what you had for dinner last night. Oh no, wait. It was blood, wasn't it?"

Buffy – "Safe bet."

Once Willow's computer had warmed up and it connected to the local internet service provider, she typed in the web address from the postit note while Giles watched with interest.

A password prompt came up and Willow looked at the postit note one more time.

Willow – "Well, there's only two more words on the note. Lambnazi and Poodle. So Lambnazi must be the user name and Poodle must be the password."

Willow typed them in and then it appeared that she had gained access to some sort of database but she wasn't sure what sort.

Willow – "Giles. Does this make any sense to you?"

Giles squinted and read the words from the screen. Then his eyes went wide in shock.

Willow – "This is a good thing?"

Giles – "Who would.. Who would do such a thing? Willow, do you know what these are?"

Willow, truly having no idea – "Nope."

Giles – "If I'm right, these are the watcher diaries. Could you turn the page down?"

Willow scrolled the page down for Giles who was becoming increasingly distressed.

Giles – "This is.. This is sacrilege! Who on earth would put watcher diaries on the internet where anyone could find them?"

Buffy – "Hey, are there Slayer diaries too?"

Willow – "Let me take a look… Yup. Hey, that's strange. It's got Kendra's but it doesn't have yours."

Buffy – "Talking of which, Giles, can I have my diary back? You didn't read it, did you? Because that part about you, I was just mucking around. I wouldn't really want you to –"

Giles, cutting her off – "No, I didn't read it."

Buffy sighed with relief – "Phew. Uh, you didn't let anyone else read it, did you?"

Giles – "Well I did forward your diaries to the watcher council. But I'm sure no one of consequence has read them. I'll have them sent back to you."

Buffy – "That would be nice. Before anyone gets to read all the poems I wrote."

Spike, skeptically – "You write poems? You?"

Buffy, uncomfortably – "Just a few."

Faith giggled – "That's pretty funny."

Giles, flicking through Lambronazi's physical diary to the end – "There was something written at the back of the diary which I found curious as it was written in modern English. Here it is, a riddle. How did I die? My watcher. You must find that out and only then will you know the face of truth."

Willow – "Didn't she commit suicide?"

Giles – "That is what I was originally told but I was also told that Lambronazi never performed her duties as a Slayer. From the little I've read in her diaries, that much is untrue."

Faith – "If she was the one Buffy was channeling before then that chick could fight. I'm not joking when I say that it was a life and death struggle."

Buffy – "About that, I'm really sorry."

Faith, chuckling – "No you're not."

Buffy, hurt – "I am a little."

Giles – "Willow, do you think you could find her watchers diary now that we conveniently have access it to now. Her watchers name was Matthias."

Willow inquired - "Matthias Reginald Porter of the thirteenth century?"

Giles – "Uh, no. He's a little earlier than that."

Willow – "It must be this one. Just Matthias. No last name."

Giles looked at her with mild surprise – "That was quick."

Willow, smiling – "I used the find command."

Giles – "Oh, quite. Now we'll need to find something pertaining to the start of her visions."

Willows, typing into the laptop – "Visions it is. Ummmm, a dream.. another dream.. oh! Here it is. Uh, okay. That's not very nice."

Faith looked over Willow's shoulder and her face went blank as she read what was on the screen.

Faith – "Kakistos."

Willow – "It seemed that Kakistos tortured her for a considerable length of time and tried to turn her. But for some reason he couldn't."

Giles – "Yes, well, most Slayers are very resistant to that sort of thing."

Giles hemmed slightly when Buffy and Faith glared at him.

Giles – "I'm just stating the truth. There's no need to kill the messenger."

Faith – "So he didn't turn her?"

Willow shook her head as she speed-read through the diary.

Willow – "No. He tried but eventually gave up and decided to .. curse her with insanity instead. She broke free and.. Matthias tried to get her the antidote. Oh! Kakistos, he had this demon poison her. The poison is very slow acting and it causes insanity before the victim eventually finally dies from it. It.. it takes months. In Lambronazi it had the unusual effect of supercharging her visions."

Spike, conversationally – "That all sounds like a glarg-ka-ghoul-kash-manic."

Giles - "Yes. I've heard of them. Horrid things."

Faith to Spike – "Wait. How would you know about any of this?"

Spike – "I'm not just a pretty face, luv. And if you want me to show off my brains, I will. Just watch me. Since our world's magical climate has a sterilizing effect on the glarg-ka-ghoul-kash-manic demon then it means that they can only be brought into this world through a master of chaos magics. The demon has a stinger in the base of their hands that causes intense hallucinations in whoever is stung. Basically it turns people into basket cases. The only antidote is the demon itself. You've got to kill it and eat part of it. I don't remember which part but that's what books are for."

Faith smiled, suitably impressed.

Willow – "The antidote is the stinger itself. You've got remove it from the hand and squeeze the poison out. Then you've got to mix it with some herbs to make a potion out of it and then drink it."

At Spike's own impressed look, Willow snorted.

Willow – "Oh, I didn't really know that. I was just reading from the diary. Matthias was hunting the demon and.. that's it. There's nothing else in the diary after that. He must have not gotten the antidote in time so she died. That's how she died."

Xander – "I'm not seeing this face of truth yet."

Willow frowned and re-read a few pages quickly while everyone else waited quietly.

Willow – "Oh! Oh, that's not good."

Buffy – "What's not good."

Willow – "You can tell when the poison is becoming lethal because blue welts appear around the places where the person had been stung."

Faith – "Blue welts? You mean like the ones on Buffy's back?"

Buffy – "Like the ones in the dream. Except I didn't have them on my back in the dream. I had them on my arm."

Spike, tiredly – "But Buffy isn't poisoned by a glarg-ka-ghoul-kash-manic. Their poison doesn't effect vampires. Not much anyway. It might if she got enough doses but I think she'd remember getting stuck in the back by a demon a dozen or more times."

Buffy – "Uh, what do these demons look like again?"

Spike – "Crazy bulging eyes, milky transparent skin, oh and they've got a stinger in their hands. They're kinda hard to miss."

Buffy – "No. Doesn't ring a bell but…"

Willow – "But what?"

Buffy – "But I do remember getting stuck in the back a dozen or more times."

Giles – "Really? When was this?"

O-O-O-O

Scene – The Watcher's research warehouse.

Giles backed his small car backwards into the warehouse and the large steel shutters closed down in front of them. The shutters kept out the only source of natural sunlight in the warehouse which was lit entirely by electric lighting to make it more vampire friendly. Once parked, Faith got out of the passenger side. She was wearing Buffy's sun screen pendant which is the only reason she could ride along without bursting into flames. Xander got out from the back seat while Giles unlocked the trunk.

Giles, talking into the trunk – "Buffy?"

Buffy – "It's still me. But I really don't feel very good."

Giles – "It's okay. We're going to get you help."

Faith reached in and helped the chained up Buffy out of the tight space. When Buffy got onto her feet she lost her balance but Faith held her up.

Faith – "B, you hold in there."

Buffy, weakly– "Holding in affirmed."

Faith, wincing – "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so rough with you last night."

Buffy chuckled breathlessly – "Faith, don't you ever say you're sorry for that."

Xander, confused – "What happened last night?"

Buffy shot more awake, not expecting Xander there.

Buffy – "Uh, we, uh, we were practicing. It got a bit rough."

Faith, frowning – "Yeah. Practicing."

Two lab hands wheeled up with a gurney.

Lab hand – "Put her on the bed please."

Faith gently laid Buffy down on the bed face down and the two lab hands looked surprised at the scabrous blue growths that had spouted up on her back.

Xander – "Uh, is it me or has her back gotten worse?"

Faith – "It's not just you."

Faith moved to follow the lab hands as they wheeled Buffy away but was stopped by a group of mercenary muscle. It was the same bunch of mercs that Faith had beaten up a few nights ago and the same group she had seen just the night before when they released Buffy into her custody.

Faith, frowning – "You guys? Don't you guys ever sleep? Or take time off? You know it's the weekend, right?"

Faith went to move around them but the mercs blocked her way.

Leader of the mercs, getting in her face – "I don't know about the other watchers but I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

Faith moved to the other side but the mercs barred her access again. She crossed her arms and looked like she was considering beating them up but then she dropped her arms, sighed and turned around towards Giles.

Faith, to Giles – "Hey, where's the john in this place?"

Giles, pointing – "In that direction. The door has a sign on it saying beware the leopard and there are some filing cabinets inside. The head is on the other side."

Faith gave Giles a confused look and walked off towards the toilets, muttering something about scone-heads as she did. Then she frowned as she found the mercenaries following her.

Faith, turning back towards the mercs – "Are you going to follow me into the little girls room too?"

None of them answered but none of them followed her into the disused warehouse toilet that was their part time filing room.

Once inside, Faith rested against the wall and waited for her cue.

O-O-O-O

Meanwhile, Buffy was still laying face down on the trolley bed that they had strapped her down on.

A watcher was going through the motions of playing doctor with Buffy.

Watcher – "So these delusions, you're violent when they occur?"

Buffy, trying to remain calm – "Mmm hmm. I hurt Faith pretty bad this morning when I had one. Uh, what are you doing?"

Buffy couldn't see him as he prepared a syringe full of some strange blue medicine.

Watcher – "I'm going to give you something that should help with those sores on your back."

Buffy – "Will it make me all better?"

Watcher, giving her a plastic smile – "Yes. I will make you all better."

Then the lights died and the room went black.

Watcher – "Oh. Oh dear. Well, not to worry. We'll have the generator on very soon and then we can continue."

There was a loud crash coming from somewhere distant in the warehouse and a small smattering of gunfire intermixed with screams and more crashes.

The watcher fell over himself and cried out in pain as he tipped over a few pieces of medical equipment.

Buffy, in the darkness – "Don't worry, doctor. We're going to make it all better."

There were a few more cries and sounds of struggling but they stopped after a short time. Then in the middle of the sick bay, there was the sound of a snap and Giles, Faith and Xander were illuminated in the dark by a glow stick in Xander's hand. Xander and Giles were also wearing night vision goggles. Although Giles was holding his goggles to his eyes as if they were binoculars, not at all comfortable with them.

Faith – "Nice work with the power, Xander."

Xander – "Thanks. Nice work with the goon squad."

The makeshift doctor looked up at them in fright and in a little pain. By way the syringe was poking out of the watcher's leg, it looked like he had just injected himself with some of what he was going to give Buffy. He pulled out the syringe with a look of horror on his face.

Watcher, pleading to Giles – "Oh no. Please. You've got to help me. You-you've got to get Robson."

Giles – "Robson's not here today. Now tell us, what have been doing to Buffy?"

Watcher – "You don't understand. This, it's dangerous to humans. I've got to get an antidote."

Faith – "It can be dangerous to vampires too. But I'm with you on the antidote. Let's go do that. We'll make some for you and we'll make some for Buffy too. Because you see, we know it's you who has been poisoning her and making her all nutso."

The watcher looked at Buffy and then back at the other three Scoobies with a new determined look on his face.

Watcher – "I won't help you cure her."

Faith – "Why not? If you don't cure her, we sure as hell won't let you cure yourself."

Watcher – "You don't understand. Buffy, she's what's the council has been waiting for. I won't be the weak link that breaks the chain. I'd rather die than have the council fail."

Giles – "I like to think I'm a reasonable man so why don't you explain your actions before we kill you outright. Hmm?"

Watcher – "Very well. When the Abomination reaches maturity, it will become a worthy vessel for the prophet Lambronazi. The poison we have injecting her with, she needs it to turn into a perfect medium for Lambronazi the prophet. Tonight, Lambronazi will be reborn in her and all traces of vampire in Buffy will be destroyed. This was set into motion millennia before and it cannot be stopped nor should it be. With the rebirth of Lambronazi, the golden age will begin. You really think the council would vest all our interests in a vampire? Lord no. The vampire you call Buffy is just as Lambronazi described, an Abomination. There's no place for her in this world. There never was."

Faith punched the watcher in the face and he went slack and slumped again the floor unconscious.

Faith, talking to the unconscious man on the ground – "Hate to tell you, bud. But your golden age aint what it's cracked up to be."

Giles, disappointed – "Faith. We could have used him for more information."

Faith – "Screw him. Let's just find this demon spunk we need and get out of here."

Xander, crouching down with the glow stick – "It looks like this was Buffy's last dose. And most it went into his leg."

Giles – "Then we must find the demon it came from. It's possible they still have it alive."

Faith – "Why would they keep it alive?"

Giles – "A lot of reagents work best if they're fresh."

Xander, looking around with his goggles back on – "So what would we be looking for? A fridge? Or the worlds biggest piece of Tupperware to seal in that freshness?"

Giles – "I-I'm not sure."

Buffy, weakly – "Over there."

Xander – "Buffy?"

Buffy – "It's here in the warehouse. I can hear it."

Faith – "I can't hear anything."

Buffy – "Sound proofing."

Xander wheeled Buffy out of the sick bay on the trolley bed.

Xander – "Let your ears do the talking and Xander do the walking."

Buffy – "Take a right."

Xander took a right while Faith and Giles followed him. They came up to a bunch of long, almost coffin like crates.

An almost inaudible whine came from one of the crates and it shook a little.

Xander, looking at the crate – "Guess this must be the one. Uh, can anyone pick locks?"

Faith – "Yeah sure. I can."

Faith ripped the padlock off the crate and flipped the lid open. Inside the crate was a weird, somewhat other worldly demon strapped in. Its crazy bulging eyes fixed on the three upright Scoobies but it didn't say anything.

Faith – "So this is the demon?"

Giles – "Yes. I believe so."

Giles pulled out a barbeque fork from underneath his jacket and hesitated a little.

Giles, to the demon – "It's not that I have anything against you personally but.."

As Giles stabbed the demon with the fork, Buffy slid downwards into unconsciousness.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	33. 11d Rinse Repeat

O-O-O-O

Willow shook Buffy gently.

Willow, worried – "Buffy. Wake up."

Buffy stirred awake and winced at the pain coursing through her body. She looked around and found herself in the master bedroom back at the mansion. Most of the Scoobies were standing around the bed with somber looks on their faces. Giles and Spike was missing from the scene. She was out of her chains but was too weak to do anything too dangerous anyway.

Willow was sitting down next to her on the bed and holding a cup full of something foul smelling up to her mouth. Willow helped Buffy drink the potion, supporting her back as she drank.

Buffy, once she had done drinking – "That smelt a lot worse than it was. That was the antidote, right?"

Willow, cringing in an unattractive way – "I'm sorry. It wasn't."

Buffy – "Then why did you have me drink it?"

Willow – "Uh, because, we, uh, we found it in Lambronazi's watcher book. Her watcher used it to help fight the poison. It should help keep your mind a little clearer."

Buffy, sighing – "So where's the antidote?"

Willow gulped nervously and looked around as if wanting someone else to break the bad news.

Willow – "We can't make the antidote."

Buffy – "Why not?"

Willow – "Because we can't find the reagents we need."

Buffy frowned and tried to concentrate under the fog her mind was in.

Buffy – "But Giles said they were common ingredients. Like flour and baking soda and stuff."

Faith – "Someone got to all the magic stores before him and brought all the supplies we needed."

Cordelia – "One of the store clerks mentioned something about tweed."

Buffy groaned and looked over at the wooden slat windows. The way the sunlight was coming in almost horizontally, she knew that the sun was about to set.

Willow sat down next to Buffy and placed a hand on the invalid vampire's arm. Buffy looked down at where Willow was touching her and found her own arms to be covered in festering blue welts.

Willow – "Should we get you some blood?"

Buffy, with dry chapped lips –"No. I'm not thirsty."

Buffy looked around the room, at her friends and at her childe, who all looked like they had been crying.

Buffy, with her eyes closed – "I'm running out of time, aren't I?"

Willow, forced – "Yes."

Buffy let out a dry chuckle which held no humor in it.

Buffy – "This isn't how I thought it would happen."

Willow – "Is there anything you want? Are you in pain?"

Buffy – "A little pain but it only hurts when I breathe. Could.. Faith.."

Faith, with an uncomfortable frown – "Uh, yeah?"

Buffy – "I.. Take care of Dawn for me?"

Faith, looking weirdly at Buffy – "Buffy, I can hardly take care of myself. I can't raise a kid too."

Buffy – "Faith. Please. She can't really protect herself against other vampires. And someone needs to keep her out of trouble."

Dawn, defending herself – "Hey, I'm not a kid. And I think I'm older than her."

Buffy, tiredly – "Dawn, just.. just stick with Faith, okay?"

Dawn sighing – "Okay."

Buffy – "And Faith, keep my friends safe. Please."

Faith – "Consider it done. You didn't even have to ask."

Buffy smiled and then winced in pain like someone stabbed her in the back with a fork.

Cordelia – "Maybe we should have let her sleep."

Buffy – "No. I want to stay awake. I-I need to say things."

She reached out and took one of Willow's hands in her own.

Buffy, looking weak – "Willow, you know I love you, right?"

Willow's heart couldn't help but break at this and she started crying again.

Willow, clutching Buffy's hands back – "Oh Buffy."

Buffy – "You're the best friend I've ever had. You've always treated me like I was human and you always forgave me. And.. And you're so cute and your skin, it's so smooth and yummy."

Willow's teary-eyed moment faltered and she looked at Buffy in a hesitant way as Buffy stroked the smooth back of her hands.

Willow – "Uh, thanks?"

Buffy, with her eyes closed in a daydream – "Every time you breathe you make my pants go crazy. So hot and slender and pliable. Oh, the things I could do to you. Could make you feel so good."

Willow pulled her hands away from Buffy's and turned beet red.

Willow, hurriedly – "Uh, Buffy, I think you're delirious. You really shouldn't say things like that."

Buffy opened her eyes and squinted as if the light was too bright in the dimly lit room.

Buffy, weakly – "Sorry. I.. Xander?"

Xander – "You were talking about me right then, weren't you?"

Buffy chuckled a little – "Yeah. That's right, Xander. God, my head feels like it's full of water. What did you give me, Willow?"

Willow – "Uh, it was just supposed to ease the effects of the poison. The diary didn't say anything about the side effects. Sorry."

Buffy – "It's okay. I don't feel so bad anymore. This is.. all okay."

Buffy's head slowly lolled back on the pillow and her eyes slowly slid up under her eyelids. Not liking this at all, Willow reached out and shook her upright. Buffy gasped from the shock and found Willow with her resolve face on.

Willow – "Buffy. You've got to stay awake."

Buffy – "But why? Why do I have hold on? I should've died so long ago. I should've died when Angelus killed me."

Willow – "That's nonsense. You've done good things since then. You saved us from Angelus, remember?"

Buffy, closing her eyes – "Willow, I don't want to keep feeling like this. I just want it to be over. I want to rest."

Willow shook her again and Buffy growled at her.

Willow, not scared in the slightest – "You think you get to just roll over and die? You can't make that decision for yourself. You've got to live."

Buffy looked at Willow and looked over at her friends. Then she let her head fall on Willows shoulder and she cried. This poison in her veins, this whole situation, her entire life, it was all a sick joke. But the truth was she didn't want to say goodbye to her friends no matter how crumby they treated her sometimes.

Buffy, almost whispering – "Willow. I'm scared."

Willow – "We're going to make you better somehow. You just have to hold on."

No one in the room really believed that but Willow was doing her best to lie to herself.

Buffy – "I can't."

Joyce – "Yes, you can."

Everyone in the room froze and turned to Joyce, who was standing in the hallway.

Buffy – "Mom?"

Faith – "Uh, who's that?"

Joyce held out her hand to Faith with a smile, which Faith took and shook gently.

Joyce – "Joyce Summers, Buffy's mother. You must be Faith."

Faith, looking around the room - "Oh..kay. And what's with all the looks you're getting?"

Joyce – "They weren't expecting me. And Buffy, you are not going to die."

Cordelia – "I hate to be the one to tell you but yeah she is."

Joyce – "No she's not because I brought the ingredients for the potion."

Joyce held up few plastic baggies full of what looked like hay and dead bean sprouts, offering them to Willow, whose mouth fell open in shock and awe.

Willow – "But how did you get them?"

Joyce – "That's not really important right now, is it? What's important is that we've got them now and we can make that potion."

Willow, taking the bags – "Yes, you're right! I'll just go make the potion. You keep her conscious."

Joyce took over Willow's bedside space as Willow ran out into the other room to make the concoction needed to save Buffy.

Buffy – "Mom. I-I'm sorry for not-"

Joyce cut Buffy off by placing her fingers over her daughter's mouth.

Joyce, in a gentle motherly tone – "Ssh. You've got no reason to apologize to me. Rather, I should be apologizing for you. These last few years, I haven't really been there for you and for that, I'm sorry. More than that, I'm proud of you. I really am. And I don't want you to worry about dying tonight because it's not going to happen. I know it for a fact."

Buffy – "I don't know about that, mom. I can feel myself slipping away. It's going to be close."

Joyce, with a sort of strange half smile – "You've got nothing to worry about. Whatever happens I know you're going to survive."

Right then, Willow came rushing back into the room with a glass cup full of sickly glow-in-the-dark liquid.

Willow – "Buffy. This is it. Drink it."

Joyce helped Buffy up and Willow helped her drink the phosphorescent concoction.

Once Buffy had drunk it all, Joyce let Buffy back down gently and nothing seemed to happen at first.

Buffy was about to say something when her eyes flashed hot blue. She arched her back and gnarled her hands as if she was in the most gruesome agony. Her game face morphed on as the blue welts along her arms flaked off and floated away like bone ash caught on the wind. She writhed and set her claws in the mattress, screaming as if trying to wring the pain out through her lungs. Then as quickly as the pain came, it stopped and Buffy slumped down on the bed.

Xander – "Whoa. That was some extra strength Gatorade, wasn't it, Buffy?"

But Buffy didn't reply. Instead, she looked around the room like a zombie. Something definitely wasn't right with her. They could see it in her eyes.

Joyce and Willow both backed off from the bed.

Xander – "Uh, Buffy? You're still with us, right?"

But Buffy still didn't say anything.

Oz – "Lambronazi?"

And the face that belonged to Buffy looked pleadingly to Oz. Now everyone backed away from the bed.

Xander – "Oh my god! It's her. The crazy prophet girl. But I thought the potion was supposed to stop this from happening!"

Willow, distraught – "It was!"

Buffy, from behind Xander – "Well, it didn't. It actually helped it along."

Xander yelped and scrambled away from Buffy in surprise and he realized that something very odd was happening.

There were two Buffys in the room. There was a Buffy on the bed who was now possessed by the soul of a long dead slayer and a Buffy who was standing upright and had dyed her hair dark brown. The brunette Buffy was wearing jeans and a simple white singlet. It was the sort of thing Buffy wore for patrol all the time.

Cordelia – "Okay, what the hell is going on here?"

The Buffy with dark brown hair – "Hey guys, miss me?"

Everyone just kept staring between the two Buffys in total and utter confusion.

Brunette Buffy sighed – "Okay. This is going to get a bit complicated."

Willow – "You're Buffy's ghost?"

Brunette Buffy – "No. I'm .. Oh, she's dying."

On the bed, Lambronazi looked like she was trying to breathe but couldn't as if she was choking.

Joyce, with clear concern in her voice – "Buffy. What's wrong with her?"

Buffy, going into command mode – "I think I know. Umm. Okay. Everyone who isn't a vampire leave the room right now! Don't ask questions. Just leave. You don't want to be here for what we're going to do. And Dawn, you're a vampire. That means you stay."

Everyone left but for Buffy, Faith and Dawn and of course the body swapping prophet on the bed.

After all the humans left the room, Buffy crept along the bed and straddled her own dead body. Lambronazi looked up at her through hazel-green eyes with panic in her eyes and Buffy couldn't help but smile slightly.

Buffy, still smiling – "Dawn. Come here."

Dawn quietly came over to the side of the bed and Buffy pulled her up onto it. Dawn gasped but didn't struggle as Buffy took one of her wrists.

Buffy – "I want you to know that what you did for me and Angel, it meant a lot to me. But tell me, you'd never betray me, would you?"

Dawn, looking at the floor – "No."

Buffy – "Good. Because I'm giving her to you."

Dawn looked up at Buffy with some confusion.

Buffy – "Lambronazi. She'll be yours to do with as you wish."

Dawn looked at Buffy with more confusion while Buffy kissed her on the wrist. Then Buffy let her gameface on for a few seconds as she bit down and broke the skin, making Dawn hiss in pain.

Dawn – "Ow! What was that for?"

Buffy, with an amused smile – "Sorry. I forgot how sensitive you are."

Dawn didn't reply and didn't say anything as Buffy took her wrist and placed it to Lambronazi's hungry mouth. After tasting Dawn's blood, Lambronazi started to suckle on her wrist while Dawn's eyes rolled back up into the back of her head.

Buffy, whispering to Dawn – "It's her first night as a vampire and you're the first one to feed her. You know what that means?"

Dawn struggled through the unfamiliar euphoria running through her body to shake her head.

Buffy – "It means you'll be her sire. You'd like that, wouldn't you? She'll protect you. She'll serve you. She'll let you do whatever you want to her. She'll fulfill your every desire. What do you think about that?"

Dawn, wiped out – "Whoa. This feels so weird."

Buffy grinned at her sleepy childe and kissed them on the neck, on the same place she bit them so many nights ago. It was getting too much for Dawn and she fainted dead, slumping down on the bed next to Lambronazi. After this happened, Lambronazi stopped feeding and nuzzled up against Dawn's stomach as both of the younger vampires curled up to sleep.

Faith – "Uh, Buffy. This is all a little weird. And did you get Dawn to sire-ize that lamb-nazi chick? Why?"

Buffy, stroking sleeping Dawn's hair – "Because now the watchers council won't dare touch her. Not now that she's the sire of their golden childe for a new golden age. If they killed Dawn then Lambronazi would wail insane on them."

Faith – "Oh. Right. But wouldn't it be smarter for you to do it yourself."

Buffy shrugging – "Maybe. But I really owed Dawn one. Umm, could you just watch them for a moment to make sure the new girl doesn't do anything funny? It's just I need to explain a few things to the mortals."

Faith – "Fine. But you'll just have to explain it to me afterwards."

Buffy, looking Faith up and down from where she sat – "I missed you."

Faith, frowning – "You make it sound like you haven't seen me in a while."

Buffy, simply – "Because I haven't. But thinking about the night we shared, it kept me going."

Faith just frowned some more as Buffy hopped off the bed.

Buffy, suggestively – "Don't go anywhere. I've got plans for you later."

Now this Faith understood and smirked as Buffy left the room to face her friends.

O-O-O-O

Out in make shift lounge room, Buffy came out in time to see Spike offering some whiskey to Joyce.

Joyce – "No thank you Spike."

Xander – "Wait. You two know each other?"

Joyce, nodding – "Oh sure. We met when he joined forces with Buffy to fight Angelus."

This got a few confused looks from around the room. It seemed as if the world had been turned upside on them.

Buffy sat down next to Joyce, on the arm rest on the edge of the couch.

Spike's eyes sharpened up when he saw Buffy.

Spike – "Oi, hang on. What's going on here? I thought you were ill. What are you doing up and when did you dye your hair?"

Buffy winked at Spike mischievously.

Buffy – "You don't miss a trick, do you Spike. What do you think? I kinda like my hair this color."

Spike, rubbing his chin in thought – "It actually suits you."

Cordelia hemmed loudly.

Cordelia – "Excuse me but when is someone going to explain what's going on?"

Buffy sighed and started explaining.

Buffy – "In the other room, Lambronazi possessed my body. Now here's the kicker. I possessed hers. That's right. I possessed her body on the instant of her death hundreds of years ago. I never did figure out the exact date. They weren't big on keeping time back then."

Everyone just stared at Buffy as the implications of what she said settled in.

Xander – "So how did you get here then?"

Buffy chuckled – "I waited of course."

Xander – "What do you mean you waited?"

Buffy rolled her eyes – "Xander. I was in the past, right? If you wait long enough then past eventually becomes the present. So I waited and voila, here I am."

Willow – "Whoa. You mean you've been alive for hundreds of years?"

Buffy nodded with a grin.

Willow- "The sights you must have seen, the things you must have done. Buffy, you must be a completely different person now."

Buffy chuckled, almost an evil cackle.

Willow, frowning - "What?"

Buffy – "Sorry, it's just I spent most of the time sleeping. I brought this sleeping potion off an alchemist. You drink a few drops and it puts you into suspended animation for a few centuries. I took it and I've been sleeping ever since then."

Willow - "You've been sleeping? Just sleeping? You didn't sight see at all?"

Buffy – "Willow. If I did that, I could have totally derailed the timeline and never gotten home. Besides, the past is majorly boring. They don't even have cable."

Willow – "Yeah but what an opportunity. You really didn't do anything?"

Buffy, frowning – "Well.. no. Not really. I.. I tried but I just couldn't seem to. It was as if there was some sort of force stopping me from changing things. It felt kind of like how it feels when I try to walk into a house without an invite."

Willow gasped – "Oh, of course! You weren't unbound from the timeline."

Xander gasped too – "That means that she literally couldn't effect the timeline, doesn't it?"

Willow nodded – "The fact that Buffy swapped bodies with someone in the past meant that she couldn't change anything otherwise the swap wouldn't occur and she would cause a paradox. This is fascinating. The universe obviously has some sort of built in coping mechanism for time travel."

Xander – "So the time stream corralled her into a precise course of action and things couldn't have turned out any different than it did."

Willow – "It's either that or when Buffy altered the timeline, her memories changed with it. And thus she couldn't really tell if she was changing anything at all."

Buffy – "I don't think so. There's tons I wanted to change. Like what happened to Jenny. And really would've liked to have missed that whole evil boyfriend phase I had too. But I think you're right about being corralled. I couldn't really interfere too much. If I did then I would've caused a paradox and the timeline would've folded up its own ass. Uh, so I couldn't. Or I did and I forgot. Yeah, that about sums it up"

Cordelia – "I'm not buying any of this. It's insane."

Xander, squinting his eyes at Buffy – "Actually, I think Cordelia's right. Like if you're in someone else's body then why do you look exactly the same."

Buffy – "I still haven't figured that one out. Best explanation I've found so far is that I'm Lambronazi, reincarnated. Which might explain why we look so similar. Nothing else makes a lick of sense."

Oz – "But how can you be her reincarnated if she's here? And since when did people reincarnate and look exactly the same?"

Xander – "Yeah. I thought everyone was Neapolitan or Pocahontas in their past lives. How could that be if they always looked the same?"

Buffy shrugged – "I'm a little stumped on that too."

Spike gasped and Buffy gave him a wink.

Spike – "Bloody hell. I remember you now. We were.. You.. But you.."

Everyone looked at Spike who was now totally speechless.

Buffy, explaining to the others – "I bumped into Spike a few years back. It's a long story that DOESN'T need to be told right now. You hear that Spike?"

Spike nodded, almost obediently as he continued to give her a shocked look.

Buffy, to the others again – "I sorta made an impression."

Oz – "What do we do with Lambronazi?"

Buffy – "Do? Umm. I dunno. I don't really know her but I thought she could hang around a while until she gets used to the future. I wouldn't mind having another Slayer helping out either."

Willow – "So we didn't lose you at all? We just gained another Slayer."

Buffy, nodding cheerfully – "Yay us!"

Xander – "And I bet that Joyce didn't just turn up in the nick of time with the right ingredients for the spell."

Joyce joined Buffy in a little silly laugh together.

Joyce – "No. I wouldn't know my ragwort from my newt eyes. Buffy got them for me."

Buffy – "Actually I've been living at home since the day Angel and me were sucked into Acathla's funky portal of doom."

Cordelia - "I thought it was a bit strange how well Joyce was taking Buffy's death."

Buffy – "Yup. That's right. To her it's like I didn't go anywhere at all. It's actually been nice just spending some time at home. I even got a tan. See?"

Buffy held her arm out to show off her gold tan which just confused Willow.

Willow – "But Buffy. How could you get a tan? You're still a vampire, aren't you?"

Buffy – "Oh yeah. I'm still a vamp. I just spelled myself so I can walk around in sunlight, have a reflection and stuff."

Willow, shocked – "You what! Buffy, where did you get access to magic like that?"

Buffy chuckled, this time quite evilly – "Oh. I forgot to mention? I'm good friends with the head of the European branch of watchers. He lent me a whole heap of books on vampire magic. I actually brought them with me back to Sunnydale so I can spell Faith and Dawn and.. well, I might spell Spike if he plays nice."

Spike gave Buffy an appalled look.

Spike – "Have I ever been anything less than polite to you? Of course you've got to give daytime privileges."

Buffy, smirking – "We'll see."

Xander – "Well, we've got Buffy back. Crisis averted. Good work people."

Buffy – "Yes. We got the big W. Keep it up. Now if everyone could give us vampires some privacy, I need to go check on Lambronazi. It's her first night as a vampire and that's always a very trying time."

Xander – "Hold on. She's a vampire?"

Buffy – "Well, yeah. She didn't have a pulse so I'm guessing vampire."

Right then the front door burst open and a disheveled Giles stumbled in with clumps of magic weed in his hands. Everyone stared in his direction and upon seeing Buffy, he stared back.

Buffy, looking like she was going to cry – "Oh Giles. You never gave up on me, did you?"

Giles, totally confused – "Buffy?"

Buffy just smiled as she walked over and hugged him tightly.

Buffy – "Yes, it's me, Giles. I'm okay now."

Giles – "But.. you don't know what I went through to get this stuff."

Buffy frowned – "No. No, I really don't. But thanks, honestly."

With that said, Buffy kissed him on the cheek and turned to the others.

Buffy – "Could someone else explain to Giles? Faith is probably getting worried."

Willow – "Sure, Buffy. I'll do it."

Buffy – "Thanks Willow. You're a doll."

Buffy walked out of the room back into their bedroom while Willow wore a frown.

Willow – "I'm a doll?"

Spike – "I think Buffy might have taken the scenic route home because I've never heard of a sleeping potion like that before."

Xander, chuckling – "What? You've never seen Army of darkness?"

After Xander said that, the room got sort of quiet.

O-O-O-O

Faith smiled when Buffy came back into the room, surprised at how happy she was to see the other Slayer.

Buffy, smiling too – "Hey you."

Faith – "I think I figured it out."

Buffy – "Really? You weren't just eavesdropping."

Faith chuckled – "Okay. Maybe I was eavesdropping. But tell me, who wrote the prophecies?"

Buffy looked at her innocently – "What do you mean? Lambronazi did, of course."

Faith – "So you're telling me that you didn't write them? Unlike the nazi, you actually knew what was going to happen."

Buffy, smiling coyly – "I might have written one or two pages."

Faith – "Just one or two?"

Buffy – "I wrote a poem for the hand of twilight. Want me to recite some of it?"

Faith, blown away in a non literal way – "You wrote a poem? For me?"

Buffy nodded as she pressed herself gently against Faith, pinning the brunette against the wall.

Buffy – "Her lips are softer than rose petals. Her kisses hungrier than a whirlpools fury. Her love is sweet but fatal. But whoever can tame her will know endless victory."

Faith smirked – "Man. You suck at poetry."

Buffy – "Just shut up and gimme some victory, baby."

With that said they mashed their mouths together and started getting very physical despite the guests in the other room.

O-O-O-O

In the other room Willow was explaining the situation to Giles when there was a loud crash coming from the bedroom.

Spike – "Don't worry. It's just those to at it again."

Xander – "Are they fighting again? I bet Buffy's been waiting thousands of years just so she could lay into Faith one more time."

Willow, with a sigh – "You know what, Xander. I think you might be right."

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	34. 12a Vicious monthly cycle

O-O-O-O

Faith pushed Xander against the hallway wall in Joyce's house and snarled at him with her game face on, sending little flecks of spit flying out of her mouth as she did.

Faith – "What is wrong with how I'm dressed!"

Xander, with a look of unadulterated fear on his face – "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Faith was wearing some PVC pants, a generic black shirt and a rugged looking biker jacket. They weren't her most controversial clothes but they did suit her well.

Faith, incensed – "That's not what you were saying before. So what is it? Am I not showing enough flesh or something?"

Xander – "No, it's not that."

Faith – "What! You don't like my flesh?"

Xander – "I didn't say that."

Faith, accusingly – "But you were thinking it."

Tara, pleadingly – "Faith. He didn't mean anything by it. Please, just let him go."

Faith glared at her then looked away and fumed quietly as she forced her game face off.

Faith, bitterly – "You're right. He's just a man. Doesn't know anything."

Seeing that Faith had calmed down, Tara moved closer and put a soothing hand on her shoulder.

Faith, over her shoulder – "I need to change again."

With that said Faith turned away and sprinted up the stairs.

Once she was out of earshot, Xander turned to Tara with a "what the hell was that?" look on his face.

Xander - "I thought the slayers weren't in heat anymore."

Tara – "Th-They're not. They're just coming down from it and it's causing them to be a little.."

Cordelia – "Bitchy. How come I'm always the one to have to say it?"

Now that the fracas was over, Joyce stepped forward with a welcoming smile on her face.

Joyce, offering – "Coffee?"

Cordelia – "Yes please. That would be great."

Xander – "Thanks. I definitely need something to drink after that."

Joyce didn't question Xander's strange remark and moved off into the kitchen while the three teenagers moved into the living room. As they did, they found Dawn and Lambronazi standing in the middle of the room with a lost look to them. When they spotted Xander, their lost look turned into a silly coy look like they were two twelve year olds pining over their first crush.

Dawn, trying not to giggle – "Hi Xander."

Xander, cheerfully – "Hey Dawnie, Lambie."

Cordelia clutched his hand painfully tight and Xander winced, remembering how she told him not to encourage the two newest vampires.

Dawn and Lamb sat down on the couch and Dawn patted the space in between them with a look towards Tara. Tara sat down between them and the two vampires snuggled up against her while Xander and Cordelia looked on in something approaching horror.

Tara, explaining with a little embarrassment – "They really like body heat."

Dawn – "And she's soooo comfortable. Every vampire should have their own Tara."

Xander and Cordelia sat down on the other couch in the room and tried to get comfortable.

Cordelia, conversationally – "So how are Dawn and Lamb doing? They didn't get any PMS?"

Tara, frowning a little – "No. I don't think so. But then Lambie doesn't talk that much. Dawn?"

Dawn shrugged a little as she was idly reached across Tara's shoulders and played with Lamb's hair.

Dawn – "Haven't noticed anything wrong with her. She's been perfect so far."

Xander pondered about Dawn's idea of perfection as Lamb leant into Dawn's hand and started purring gently. Tara noticed that the other two humans in the room were finding Lamb's behavior unsettling.

Tara, a little awkwardly – "Sh-she purrs when she's comfortable sometimes."

Cordelia, trying to be diplomatic – "Oh. That's.. different."

Tara, as Lambronazi buzzed away next to her – "I'm sorry about before. Faith has a real short wick today. Although, she's only been blowing up at Spike and Buffy until now. I don't get why she blew up at Xander."

Xander – "Talking of which. Where is Buffy? She was supposed to wait for us here."

Dawn – "You think Faith was bad? You should have seen Buffy. She was so miserable. So she decided to go see Angel. She said she would meet you at the library afterwards."

Xander, working that out in his head – "She was miserable and so she left to see Angel? That's like adding drapes to a house fire."

Dawn – "Yeah. She should've just stayed here and enjoyed Tara with us."

Tara tittered a little as she looked at the floor, awkwardly.

Xander and Cordelia shared a confused look. Tara really acted out of place for someone who was friends with Faith and enjoyed the company of snuggling vampires. In fact, Tara seemed to be the polar opposite of Faith. While Faith was all swagger and swinging hips, Tara was withdrawn, eager to please and wore her vulnerability on her sleeve.

Which begged the question why Tara was dressed like she was? She was wearing a black figure hugging PVC bodysuit with lots of frills and tight belts across it. On her feet, she was wearing what appeared to be army boots. True, her clothes showed almost no skin at all but then why would they need to when they were so form fitting they might as well have been a second skin? Her clothes gave her the look of someone who read the personal pages, looking for a new daddy to give her a good spanking.

Xander's mouth curled up as he thought about that and Cordelia slugged him in the arm.

Xander – "Ow! Hey, what was that for?"

Cordelia, accusingly – "Don't look at her them way."

Xander – "Sorry but how can I look at them without, you know, looking at them? Call me weak but I'm a man. There are some things I just can't do."

With that explained, Xander went back to ogling Tara with a new, triumphant smile. The voluptuous blonde fidgeted a little under his stare until Xander stopped at frowned.

Xander – "Uh, is everything okay?"

Tara didn't respond at first but eventually her head bobbed up and down a little with – "I'm fine."

Xander and Cordelia now shared a concerned look between each other.

Cordelia, sitting down next to Tara – "So you and Faith are friends, huh?"

To this, Tara nodded.

Cordelia – "And she treats you okay?"

Tara looked at up at Cordelia, not really understanding the question.

Cordelia – "I mean, she doesn't hurt you at all, does she?"

Tara, a little louder than before – "Faith? No! Of course not. Sh-She's my best friend. I'd trust her with my life."

Cordelia – "Oh. Okay then. Sorry it's just.."

Tara, almost sounding scared of some secret being revealed – "Just what?"

Cordelia, dismissively – "Nothing. Oh look, coffee!"

Joyce came in, handing Xander and Cordelia a mug each off a tray.

Joyce, sitting down – "Tara's been telling us about some of the adventures she had with the other Xander. Tara, why don't you tell them about the jackalope?"

Tara, a little uncertainly – "Uh, the jackalope exist."

Xander and Cordelia blinked at her.

Tara – "No, really. I've seen them."

They blinked at her a few more times.

Xander – "What's a jackalope?"

Joyce, laughing – "You don't know what a jackalope is? Even I know that one."

Tara – "It's like a rabbit. An evil rabbit."

While Xander and Cordelia looked at her oddly, Faith jumped down the stairs and hemmed for their attention.

Faith – "Okay. How about now? How do I look now?"

On her bottom half she was wearing some black leather chaps and what looked like a black bikini bottom underneath. On top she was wearing the matching black bikini top and that was all. Also, her make up was a little too thick.

To put it plainly, she looked like Christina Aguilera on a bad day.

Cordelia, with a practiced smile – "You look great. Forget about what Xander said before. He's an idiot."

Faith, sullen – "I look good?"

Cordelia, nodding – "Yeah. You look good."

Faith – "Thanks. But I want to hear him say it."

Xander gulped a little, expecting some violence. Seconds flew by and Xander realized that he'd have to say something or he'd be facing the wrath of Faith once more.

Xander, giving a conversational one-two attack – "You look fantastic. Are we ready to go now?"

Faith, snappy – "Yes! Geez! What's wrong with you? Let's go."

Cordelia, smirking – "Yeah, Xander. What's wrong with you? Why don't you just not talk from here on out, hmm?"

Xander pursed his mouth shut, deciding that was a good idea as well.

Faith opened the front door but stopped to turn back to the others to say goodbye.

Faith – "See you lot later. And Tara, you better behave. I better not catch you drunk and dancing with a lampshade on your head again."

The way Tara glared at Faith, obviously this was just a bad joke and the others gave waves and other gestures goodbye. Then Faith walked out into the sunlight before Xander and Cordelia thought to even stop her.

Xander and Cordelia stared a little and Faith rolled her eyes.

Faith – "Buff tattooed me with those magic chicken scratchings of hers so now I'm Blade, the daywalker."

Faith slapped her rump where she was tattooed and she gritted her teeth at some unexpected pain.

Faith, chuckling at how stupid she is – "It's still a little tender. Damn but Buffy's a pain in the ass. Hey, you want to see it?"

Faith started unbuckling her belt and Cordelia yelped – "No!"

Faith, buckling her belt back up – "Suit yourself. But it looks cool."

Cordelia – "I'll take your word for it."

Xander – "Faith. Could I ask a question?"

Faith growled at him but didn't make a move towards him as they started walking.

Faith – "What is it?"

Xander – "It's about Lambronazi."

Faith, with an impatient look – "Her? What about her?"

Cordelia looked at Xander and was seriously starting to wonder what it was about him that was pissing Faith off so much. The only thing she could think of was that Xander was being a man again.

Xander – "I was just wondering, do you know why she's so…"

Faith – "Dumb?"

Xander – "Well, I wouldn't say that."

Faith – "Dumb means someone can't speak, Xander."

Xander – "Uh, but it's not like she literally can't speak, is it?"

Faith, frowning – "No. Dawn insists that they can talk. I haven't seen it yet."

Xander – "So.. do you know why she's like that?"

Faith – "You mean you don't know?"

Xander and Cordelia both shook their heads.

Cordelia, fishing – "Was she beaten as a child?"

Faith – "Damned if I know. But the only person to blame is Dawn."

Cordelia – "Huh? Excuse me?"

Faith, chuckling – "You really don't know, do you?"

Xander – "Know what?"

Faith sighed – "I'm surprised Buffy didn't tell you. It's really simple when you think about it."

Cordelia – "Then why don't you explain?"

Faith – "Okay, it's like this. A vampire starts off as a human. Another vampire comes along and turns that human into a vampire. You all know this. But what you don't know is HOW they turn them into a vampire."

Cordelia – "Yeah, we kinda do and you don't have explain that part."

Faith – "Actually you don't know. See, the vampire draining people isn't really the important part. The blood loss kills them and it makes them thirsty enough to try drinking whatever you give them but that's just the simple mechanics. When the vampire feeds them their blood, oh, now that is the trick."

Cordelia and Xander shared a look of concern as Faith started looking a little too eager in her explanation.

Faith – "You see, vampires are fantasies."

Cordelia – "They look real enough to me."

Faith, chuckling – "Hear me out. Let's say, hypothetically, that I was going to turn Cordelia."

Cordelia didn't think she liked where this was going.

Faith – "Before I turn you, I'd have an idea of what sort of vampire you'd be. Just looking at you, I'd say you'd be forceful, strong and sexy and like raping little boys."

Cordelia, shocked – "Excuse me?"

Faith, with a smirk – "Remember that we're talking hypothetical here. So I'd have this fantasy of Cordelia the kiddy fiddler. She'd got out every night and she'd come back with a few rug rats to feed on during the day. Now when I feed her my blood, that fantasy would sort of be burnt into her personality. Whether or not she turns out like that depends on what lurks within the deepest depths of her mind."

Cordelia, frowning – "For the record, I don't like little boys."

Faith – "Of course you don't. They've got no stamina. But basically, you get the vampire's fantasy for Cordelia and what Cordelia's actual personality is like and all the parts that match will go together to make Cordelia the vampire."

Cordelia and Xander thought about this for some time as they kept walking down the sunlit Sunnydale streets. People stared in Faith's direction because of her clothes but she didn't seem to care.

Xander – "So.. why is Lambronazi so quiet again?"

Faith – "Because that's how Dawn wanted her. Notice how Dawn is really sire-whipped and likes to snuggle all day? That's because that's what Buffy wanted from her. And Buffy's an insatiable nympho because that's what Angelus wanted."

After she said Angelus, she growled a little sorely as if cursing his name.

Cordelia – "So it's possible for a vampire not to be evil?"

Faith turned back to her and nodded in a preoccupied way.

Faith – "Sure. I guess. Dawn's not really evil. And Spike isn't all bad."

The two humans weren't entirely sure about this.

Faith – "No, really. He isn't. He's got a gentle side too, which from what Spike tells me Drusilla liked a lot."

Faith growled again as if she was finding this entire conversation painful.

Cordelia – "Faith. What's wrong with you today?"

Faith – "It's Buffy. That bitch is.. I don't want to talk about it."

Cordelia – "If Buffy's doing something bad then we want to know about it."

Faith – "It's nothing really. It's just hormones are kicking my ass today. It's making me all emo. So if I do anything really out of character, you'll tell me, right?"

Cordelia and Xander shared a look then they both nodded in Faith's direction.

Cordelia, with a grin – "You can count on us."

Xander – "But I've got one more question. This time it's about Tara."

Faith – "Go on."

Xander – "Umm, Faith. I don't know how to ask this but..."

Cordelia – "What the hell is with all the S&M gear!"

Faith, chuckling – "Oh. That. It's a bit embarrassing."

Cordelia – "More than walking around dressed looking like the mistress of pain?"

Faith – "Yeah. See, Xander brought all her clothes. And trust me. What she was wearing out there is tame compared to some of the stuff he brought her."

Cordelia – "Why didn't she just buy some new clothes?"

Faith, not sounding very happy about it – "She did once. And he burnt them."

Cordelia, shocked – "He burnt her clothes!"

Xander – "Okay, we all know I'm not that freak, right?"

Cordelia – "Yeah but if you ever think about burning my clothes then you'd better have a damn good solicitor."

Xander, sighing – "Yuh. I think it's time I shut my yap again."

O-O-O-O

At the library, Giles and a young Watcher named Wesley were waiting for the slayers to arrive. Wesley looked prim, proper and pleased with himself as he drank some tea while Giles looked at Wesley as if he was from another planet.

Giles– "You do know that she is a vampire?"

Wesley, eagerly – "Well, yes but not just any vampire but the prophesized hand of twilight. I never would have believed that I would have been given the honor of being her watcher."

Giles tried to rein in his surprise at just how naïve this new watcher was.

Giles – "Hasn't anyone told you about her at all?"

Wesley – "Oh yes. Quite a bit, actually. She was turned by Kakistos, who she later slew. She also discovered Buffy Summers when she returned from Acathla's hell dimension. She magically tamed William the bloody with the help of one Willow Rosenburg and is currently allied with the Summer girl's brood."

Giles – "That is all true but no one has told you about her personality, have they?"

Wesley – "Well, no but I don't see what that has to do with the price of fish in China. I'm not here to deal with her personality. I'm here to guide her in affairs of the supernatural."

Giles – "Oh good god. You've been royally snookered. Someone in the council must really hate you."

Right then the doors into the library opened up to allow Buffy and Willow to walk in.

By the way Buffy was clinging to Willow it looked like she had been crying into her shoulder.

Concern etched across Giles' face when he noticed Buffy's distraught state.

Giles – "Buffy. What happened?"

Buffy, blubbering – "He hates me."

Willow, trying to be soothing – "He doesn't hate you."

Buffy – "Yes he does. He doesn't want me anymore because I'm a vampire. Cos I'm all cold and disgusting."

Willow patted Buffy's hair down and looked to Giles for help.

Giles, a little uncertain – "You're talking about Angel?"

Buffy, hoarsely – "Yes! Who else would I be talking about?"

Giles – "Buffy, uh, Angel hasn't got his strength back yet. Has he?"

Willow – "No. But he's getting a little more lucid. He remembered what he did to Buffy which… He's not doing so well."

Buffy – "That's right and he hates me."

Willow – "Buffy, he doesn't hate you. He-he hates what he did to you. Can't you see that?"

Giles approached Buffy and awkwardly placed his hand on her shoulder in an effort to be supportive.

Giles – "I'm sure he doesn't hate you. I just don't believe any of us here could imagine what he's going through right now."

Wesley hemmed for attention – "I take it this is Buffy Summers?"

Giles – "Yes. It is."

Buffy straightened herself up a little bit, having not noticed Wesley when she first entered.

Buffy, wiping away her tears – "This is the new watcher?"

Giles – "Yes. This is the new watcher."

Buffy looked him over then put on a silly smile – "I'm sure Faith will love him long time."

Then the twin doors swung open and Faith catwalked into the room with Xander and Cordelia in two.

Buffy, smirking at Faith – "Speak of the devil."

Faith, smirking back – "Hey Killer. How was Angelus?"

Buffy lost the smile and pouted.

Faith pressed close to Buffy and patted her head in the same way Willow had done earlier. Willow had seen Faith do it to Buffy before and it appeared to have a calming effect on Buffy.

Faith, whispering into her ear – "Don't worry about him. I'll give you what you want."

Buffy snarled happily and nudged her nose into Faith's hair.

Buffy, whispering too – "Soon?"

Faith – "I like soon."

The two vampires turned their sights on Wesley.

Faith, out loud – "Who's that?"

Buffy, not sounding too pleased – "A watcher."

Faith grunted a little and Buffy smirked then grunted back as if agreeing.

Cordelia, to Xander – "Doesn't it just creep you out when they act like that?"

Xander, sounding a bit distracted as he watched the two girls whisper intimately to each other – "Yeah. Creeps me out. Sure."

Buffy and Faith split up as they stalked their way up to Wesley with predatory eyes and Wesley took a gulp as he realized that maybe coming to America might not have been such a good idea.

As they reached Wesley, the girls split up to flank Wesley in a pincer movement so that he couldn't face them both at the same time.

Wesley, very awkwardly with Buffy behind him – "I, uh, you are Faith?"

The way he asked it, he hoped his assumption was wrong.

Faith – "That's right."

Wesley – "The slayer?"

Faith – "What? You couldn't tell by the sign around my neck?"

Wesley looked down at the shiny metal "Slayer" necklace she was wearing.

Faith – "And you're Wesley?"

Wesley nodded and Faith chuckled evilly.

Faith – "Hey, Buff. I thought watchers only came in dirty old man flavor. Turns out they come in dirty boy flavor too."

Buffy, sniffing him – "He's nice."

Faith – "Really? But he's so stringy. We're going to have to fatten him up."

Buffy stroked a finger down Wesley's tweed vest and got a shiver of what could have been revulsion from the young watcher.

Buffy – "I know you like a guy you can really sink your teeth into but I like them lean and low fat. It's a lifestyle choice."

Faith – "Gotta admit that the lanky ones always seem to last longer."

Giles hemmed with disapproval.

Giles – "If you're quite finished torturing the poor man…"

Faith shrugged – "We can pick it back up later. What'cha want, watcher man?"

Giles, to Faith – "Wesley here will be your personal watcher."

Faith, confused – "My what? My personal watcher? Why? I didn't ask for one."

Giles - "Be that as it may, every Slayer must have a watcher."

Faith, still confused – "But why?"

Wesley, trying to sound authoritative but came out haughty – "Watchers have been training Slayers for as long as there have been records of them. To put it frankly, Slayer's are lost without us."

Faith's hand flashed up and grabbed Wesley by the throat.

Faith, daring him – "Say that again."

Buffy, a little concerned – "That's enough playing, Faith."

Faith, sounding deathly calm – "This puke thinks I need him. Well, I don't. I don't need training and I don't need him to tell me how to do my job."

Buffy put her hand on Faith's arm and Faith softened a little.

Buffy – "Faith. Just go with it, please."

Faith – "Why?"

Buffy – "Because he's only doing what he's been told."

This seemed to placate Faith and she let go of Wesley, who sputtered and stumbled to the floor as he caught his breath.

Faith, looking down at Wesley – "I'm going to say this once. You betray me and I'll skin you alive with a kitchen knife. You really don't want to know who you're screwing with."

Ominously, the room started to darken and several of the scoobies looked up. Those that didn't look up at first looked up when they found everyone else doing so.

Through the large skylight in the roof they could see impossibly dark clouds streaking across the sky and blotting out the sun.

Wesley, looking at Faith in fear - "Are you doing that?"

Faith – "Me? How would I do that!"

The clouds billowed out, pregnant with lightning and ominous rumbling.

Xander – "Does anyone else feel that?"

Cordelia – "Feel what?"

Xander – "All your hairs on the back of your neck standing up."

Buffy, with dread – "Oh, this won't be good."

The floor started to shake and Buffy gasped as she realized that something very spectacular was about to happen. It was also probably going to be very explosive too.

Buffy – "Everyone. RUN!"

BOOM!

A scorching, painfully blinding ball of light came into being about five feet above the main table.

The Scoobies covered their eyes as they staggered back, trying to get away from the light. Someone screamed and it sounded a lot like Cordelia.

The sky light above shattered and glass rained down as the ball of lightning flickered and bloated in size. Lightning lashed out from the blob of light as it started to take up most of the room. As its bottom started to reach the ground, it ate the table in the middle of the room and Willow found herself quickly getting trapped underneath the ever expanding cloud of energy.

Then the energy cloud died as unexpected as it arrived. There was a puff of flame and then it ended, leaving only leaving only a large, red caped, black armored demon with a brutal battle axe in its place.

Cordelia, not having noticed the demon – "Geez, Xander. Did you have to scream in my ear like that? ARHH!"

She turned screaming and fell on her ass just in time to miss having her head cut off by the demon who swung his axe out at her.

Recovering fast from the shock, the two Slayers attacked, kicking and punching the demon to little effect. With effort, it heaved its battle axe sideways and Faith ducked under it while Buffy jumped over it, kicking him in the face as the blade moved under her.

When she landed, Buffy grabbed the demon by the back of an elbow and kicked him in the back of the legs, making them buckle which in turn made them fall to his knees.

With a grunt from the demon, its cape flashed up like a whip and tossed Buffy across the room with the force of a sledge hammer.

After that, Faith moved in and tried to pull its battle axe away from it. She seemed to be succeeding too until a snake like chain shot out of its armor and lodged into Faith's shoulder. She grabbed the chain with one hand but kept trying to get the battle axe with the other hand.

Faith, in some serious pain – "What the hell are you?"

Right then, Buffy thrust a sword straight through the heart of the demon and it came out the other side so that Faith could see the end of the blade glowing with a sickly fluorescent green light.

The demon cried out in pain and the chain in Faith's shoulder retracted.

It turned its head back to Buffy and let it's cape lash out again, throwing her over the library counter.

But this gave Faith the distraction to finally wrench the axe out of its hand. The demon stumbled forward as Faith spun the axe in a perfect, deadly arc. It brought its hands up to defend itself but the axe passed straight through both its wrists and its neck at the same time. Its hands and head fell off and instead of blood spraying out of its amputations, green fire sprayed out like three gigantic welding torches. Everyone backed away but it didn't seem to be that dangerous as the demon quickly deflated like a balloon and then melted into the floor.

A second later and there wasn't a trace of it.

Giles, with Wesley hiding behind him - "What the blazes was that?"

Faith, leaning on the axe to support herself – "I don't know but it didn't know who it was fucking with. Uh.. what's wrong with Xander?"

Xander was on his back in utter agony but there didn't seem to be reason for it. His eyes screamed out to Cordelia, begging for the pain to stop.

Cordelia looked him over again and couldn't find anything wrong with him. For some reason she was suddenly reminded of breakfast and the image wouldn't go away. That was when she smelt something very similar to fried bacon strips.

She looked Xander over again and then suddenly jumped away in horror.

The cross he wore around his neck was starting to steam.

Cordelia, her voice breaking – "Oh god. No. Xander."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	35. 12b Expiration date

O-O-O-O

Everyone watched Xander writhe on the floor weakly as the cross he was wearing burnt into his chest.

Cordelia, her voice breaking – "Oh god. No. Xander."

Buffy reached down, yanked the cross off and threw it away in one fast move.

But Xander was still in agony as he reached out and grabbed Buffy's arm.

Buffy looked down at him and gulped with indecision as she put two fingers on his neck to find a pulse.

Willow, in disbelief – "Xander? No. You .. you can't be."

Buffy, snapping into command mode – "Faith. Help me take him into the office."

Faith wordlessly obeyed and all of the others just stared in shock, except for Cordelia who followed them in. By Buffy's direction, Xander was placed on Giles' wooden desk as if it was a bed.

Buffy pulled off her shirt, exposing her frilly pink bra and looked back at the doorway to find Cordelia standing in it.

Buffy – "Cordelia. I'm going to do something and I don't think you want to see it. Leave."

Cordelia looked at the door blankly and before Faith could push her out, she closed the door herself, trapping herself in the office with the vampires.

Buffy, sternly – "Cordelia. I'm serious. You don't want to see this."

Cordelia – "Just do it."

Buffy looked away for a second and sighed. By now, Xander was turning blue so she didn't have a lot of time left. She climbed up on the desk to straddle Xander, picked up a letter knife with one hand and with the other she lifted Xander's head up so she could look down into his eyes.

Buffy, as if in a trance – "Xander. Brave. Loyal. Warm. Please don't let this change you."

Then she slid the letter knife across her chest, cutting herself and she pulled Xander forward into her breasts.

Cordelia gasped but part of her already knew what Buffy was going to do. Other parts just didn't want to believe it.

At first nothing happened as Buffy held him close. Then Xander started drinking and the worst thing was that Cordelia could hear him slurping up her blood. Buffy's eyes rolled up under her eyelids and her head rolled back as Xander quickly regained his strength and started sucking harder.

Buffy, stroking Xander's hair – "That's a good boy. Keep doing that."

Buffy turned to Cordelia with hungry, raking eyes. Cordelia found herself frozen in place as Buffy pierced into her mind.

Buffy spoke to her with just her eyes, asking Cordelia to feel what she felt.

Cordelia's jaw clenched as a sharp pain scored across her chest. On top of it, she felt an urgent, insistent sucking that felt like nothing else she had ever experienced. She slumped back against the door as the delicious ecstasy turned her legs into jelly.

Cordelia, as a hot sweat covered her – "Oh god."

Xander snarled under Buffy and his fingers dug their way under her skirt and into the soft skin of her legs. Both Buffy and Cordelia gasped as if one. Xander rolled Buffy over so that he was on top and her ankles were on either side of her head. To Buffy's surprise, Xander still hadn't stopped draining her despite the change in position.

When Buffy tried to reconnect with Cordelia, she found the other girl looking away for a few seconds. Then Cordelia brought her eyes back to Buffy's hypnotic ones and the connection resumed just in time for when Xander entered Buffy.

Both girls cried out, neither expecting this invasion.

O-O-O-O

Outside, the Scoobies didn't know what to think of the heated, animalistic sounds coming from the office.

Unwanted thoughts ran through their heads as they tried to figure out why one of them didn't just break down the door and stop the vampires from doing whatever it was they were doing.

O-O-O-O

Faith was watching the exchange between the two other girls with intrigue but when Xander mounted Buffy she couldn't help but feel left out.

Faith – "Damn. Should'a brought a camera for this."

Buffy crooned and Cordelia panted as they were pushed over the edge. Although Cordelia looked kinda silly sitting on the floor like that.

Xander finally came and slumped down against Buffy as dead weight.

Seeing that it was over, Buffy relaxed and let her legs down. Eventually she broke off eye contact with Cordelia and turned away.

Cordelia, so wasted she looked delirious – "God. What was that?"

Faith, chuckling – "It's a mean little sex magic trick Buffy picked up somewhere. It lets her feel everything you feel and lets you feel everything she feels. She promised to teach me it one day but she still hasn't yet. You should see the funny looks Spike makes when she uses it on him."

Cordelia touched her chest in the same place Buffy had fed Xander from. She found an angry red line there in the same place as Buffy's cut.

Faith leaned down and picked Cordelia up, surprising the larger girl. Then Faith placed her down on the cot against the wall.

As Cordelia rested back, Faith looked her over, finding her sweaty state to look just so delicious. Faith realized that it was the first time she had actually felt hunger when looking at a human.

Faith tentatively reached down with her fingers and traced the inside of Cordelia's thigh. Then she brought her fingers back up to her mouth and tasted the sweat experimentally.

Cordelia's heart skipped a few beats as she watched Faith doing this and she wondered why vampires had to be so damned sexy?

Cordelia blinked in shock and then wondered where that thought came from. It must have come from Buffy because it sure as hell didn't come from her.

Suddenly logical thought rushed back to her and Cordelia bolted upright in the cot.

Faith – "Whoa. Easy there, girl."

But Cordelia wasn't easy. She jumped out of the cot and left the room. She bowled into Giles, outside in the library. Instead of apologizing, she kept on running out into the hall, ignoring the other Scoobie's pleading for information.

When they saw Faith, they all turned to her instead. Faith quickly closed the door to the office behind her and gulped, really not wanting to give them this news.

Willow, saying one simple word – "Xander."

Faith's voice caught in her throat. How was she supposed to tell them what happened? She didn't even understand what happened herself.

Faith, giving them it straight – "He's.. a vampire."

Willow pushed her aside and pushed the door open to find Buffy sitting in a chair and Xander resting on the table. Neither of them was moving too much.

Willow, with dread – "Is he..?"

Buffy, sounding dead – "A vampire. Yes."

Willow slapped Buffy hard, knocking her out of the chair. Willow didn't follow up the attack though. From the ground, Buffy looked up at Willow with a defeated look and Willow just stared back.

Buffy knew what she did was stupid but what else could she do? Just let Xander die?

Giles, in a commanding tone – "Faith."

Faith – "Yeah?"

Giles – "You will take Xander to the watchers for observation. Do you understand?"

Faith frowned but nodded.

Faith – "Okay."

Giles – "Wesley, perhaps you could drive them?"

Wesley stuttered a little bit then quietly nodded, eager to leave. It seemed his first day in Sunnydale was holding a little too much excitement for his tastes. He faltered a little bit when Faith picked Xander up in a fireman's carry and walked out of the library with him though. Tiny girls with super strength always look a little absurd the first time you see it.

Giles placed a hand on Willow's shoulder and the redhead looked up at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

Giles – "Could you go find Cordelia? She needs someone right now."

Willow wordlessly left the room, leaving Giles and Buffy alone in the office.

On the floor, Buffy couldn't be bothered to move from where she had fallen. After a while, Buffy looked up towards Giles but didn't say anything.

Giles, woodenly – "Buffy. Do you need some blood? The fridge has been restocked."

Buffy, lying – "I'm not hungry. Could.. could I be alone for a while?"

Giles – "Of course."

He turned and left Buffy alone in his office, closing the door behind him. He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge his nose as he tried to collect his thoughts. As he did, he heard Buffy sobbing gently through the closed door and he frowned.

What happened to Xander? It was so similar to what happened when Lambronazi possessed Buffy's body but what would precipitate such a change in the young man. It was true that Xander possessed a dangerous amount of vampiric energy. Perhaps if the boy died then that energy would keep him animated but without an actual demon inside him, he wouldn't be able sustain himself. Buffy must have realized this so she gave him some of her blood to incubate such a demon inside him.

But what would've killed Xander? He didn't seem to be wounded and that infernal demon that appeared didn't even get near him. Giles looked over to the large black circle burnt into the floor and pondered the demon's significance. Giles wasn't even sure what sort of demon that was.

That was when the watcher noticed a small, blackened and smoldering item sitting in the middle of the burnt out circle.

Giles walked over to it cautiously and touched it up, finding it hot to the touch but not scalding.

Giles, in confusion – "What in the world? It's a video camera."

O-O-O-O

Half an hour later and Faith laid Xander down on a soft mattress in one of the watcher's warehouses. This particular warehouse housed a number of holding cells which were fortified enough to contain even the strongest vampires the council knew about. Faith thought it was overkill but they were going to keep Xander in one of those cells until they figured out which way he buttered his bread.

Faith, trying to sound comforting – "It's going to be okay, Xander."

Faith looked away and frowned. She never was any good at this touchie-feelie stuff and on top of that she didn't know how to read Xander right now.

When Dawn "turned" Lambronazi, the other slayer acted a bit brain dead for a few hours. After that, the ancient slayer seemed to "come back" but didn't give them any trouble. At least she didn't attack Faith again.

With any luck, Xander would pop right back in the same way. Hopefully, even better than the mute Buffy look alike.

Faith leant down and kissed him gently on the cheek, not really wanting to leave him there.

Faith – "We'll be back in a few hours, me and the whole gang. So you just rest until then, okay?"

Wesley, by the door – "I assure you that he will be fine."

Faith looked over at him with an unimpressed look – "Oh, you assure me. Now I'm all assured. It's really assuring."

Wesley wasn't sure what to say but Faith saved him the effort.

Faith – "Fine. Let's bounce. But if anyone starts torturing him, heads are gonna roll. Literally."

Wesley didn't reply to this either, instead he dutifully followed his charge as they walked their way out of the warehouse.

Elsewhere in the warehouse Robson explained the situation to a female lab hand called Gwen, who was busy using some bleeding edge equipment to analyze Xander's blood makeup.

Gwen, clearly not impressed – "So the magnanimous Buffy Summers has turned someone else."

Robson – "Apparently they were on death's door. What's odd, Buffy achieved this without biting them."

Gwen gave Robson an intrigued look then turned back to her computer as it finished it's analysis of his blood.

Gwen, still reading the screen – "Curious. He's missing so many of the usual vampire markers."

Robson – "That's not so unusual. Dawn Summers was missing quite a few too."

Gwen – "Ahh but not these ones. Also, not this many."

The way she said that, it was as if they the markers had deep significance.

Robson – "Explain."

Gwen, pointing to her screen with finger – "He's missing this big chunk right here. That deals with the link between sires and their childe. It's possible that it just hasn't developed yet. We've never tested a vampire so young before. But he's also showing some unusual endocrinal activity that I've never seen before. At these extreme levels I believe that it will have an adverse effect on his ability to reason. I seriously don't think that this vampire will turn out the same way that Dawn has."

Robson – "You think he'll be violent?"

Gwen – "An educated guess? Yes, extremely violent. But how is that not unusual for a vampire? Of course, there is also the fact that we've never tested a vampire so young before. It's possible that his system hasn't fully stabilized yet. Also, if the rumors are true, Buffy has aged a great deal over the past few months. It wouldn't be a bad idea to do a comparative if you could get a new sample from her."

Robson, frowning – "Yes, well, I don't see that happening any time soon. The Summers girl isn't going to let us bring a needle anywhere near her after that Lambronazi fiasco. Not even to draw blood. She was quite adamant on this fact."

Gwen – "Be that as it may, perhaps she could be reasoned with for this special case. From the way Xander's blood markers look right now, he could be very dangerous and I doubt his Sire would have any control over him."

Robson thought about this and frowned. Although very unorthodox and morally questionable, Giles' band of vampires was an effective asset. If this new vampire had none of the brood mentality the other vampires possessed then perhaps it would be better to destroy him now.

Robson, coming to a decision – "We'll lock him down for a few days then test him again."

Gwen nodded as she found something very interesting in the read outs – "That's wise but.."

Robson – "But what, Gwen?"

Gwen stared at the screen then down at the vampire in the bed.

Gwen, shrugging and shaking her head – "It's nothing. Uh, you don't mind if I take some more samples for analysis, do you?"

Robson – "No. Not at all. But remember to be careful. After all, they are a vampire."

Gwen couldn't help but smirk – "I'm always careful."

O-O-O-O

Back at the high school.

Giles, Willow, Cordelia and Buffy were in the audio-visual room as Willow tried to fix a ruined video tape.

Buffy and Cordelia were slouched down in one of the sofas that the AV club had acquired from somewhere while Giles and Willow were at a work table. The remains of the burnt camcorder had been disassembled on the same table they were working on.

All of them, except Giles, had been crying but they weren't now. They were all putting on a brave front for various different reasons.

Willow, nervously – "You know, my homework was on that table that got destroyed."

Giles, also a little nervous – "Oh."

It was obvious that Willow was trying to distract herself by grafting the film from the burnt video into a new cartridge. Working would keep her mind off the fact that her first crush was now of the walking dead persuasion.

Giles – "Do you think it will work?"

Willow looked up at him and blinked a few times.

Willow – "Huh? Sorry, my ear was in sieve mode."

Giles, evenly – "I said, do you believe that you can play the video?"

Willow, as she closed up the tape cartridge - "I don't know. The signal might still work but the physical tape looks pretty degraded. I'm going to dub it on the first run just in case."

Willow, to Buffy and Cordelia – "Do you guys want to see it?"

Neither of them answered and Willow suddenly felt very stupid.

Willow, mumbling to herself – "Okay. I'll just do my own thing."

She put the reassembled mystery tape in one of the VCR's and another tape into the VCR below it. As she pushed record on one VCR and play on the other, she took a little pride knowing that she was writing over last week's cheerleading practice. Although, she chose that it was better to not let Cordelia know about that though.

Willow turned on a TV and all they got was fuzz.

Then a face appeared on the screen.

It was a slimy looking white kid with spiky blonde hair. He looked a bit ill but that could've been the lighting. The camera was being held too close to their face so it was obvious that the guy was filming himself while holding the camera out at arm's length.

Face on the TV – "Captains log. Stardate.. uh, fifth of March, 1999."

Giles and Willow gave each other a look of confusion. The way the kid said that, it was like he was actually half-way serious.

The face looked a little pensive as they thought for a few seconds before continuing.

"This is a record for if our mission is successful. It's evidence of what transpired here. If you find this, please make sure it is brought to the attention of the right authorities as it could save the world. I.. I guess I should start at the beginning."

Andrew had stopped talking and frowned as he considered where the beginning actually started.

By now, Cordelia and Buffy were had gotten up and were now watching the screen too.

Willow looked over to Cordelia and Buffy.

Willow – "Does this guy look familiar to you?"

Cordelia – "I think that's Andrew."

Buffy – "Who?"

Cordelia – "You wouldn't remember him. Before you arrived, he attacked the school play with flying monkeys."

Giles - "Flying monkeys?"

Willow - "The play was Wizard of Oz."

Giles - "Oh. Well then that makes perfect sense."

Buffy, with a groan – "I can tell now that it's going to be a long night. And it hasn't even started yet."

Andrew had formulated his thoughts into words and started speaking again.

Andrew - "It was about two weeks ago when they attacked. They attacked without warning and no one knows where they came from. Millions have been killed. Our armies are outmatched and overwhelmed. The only hope we have is to send a message, this video, back in time so that we can be warned of the threat before they attack again. Failing this, we want to open a corridor to a different dimension through which we can siphon refugees through. But until then, why don't I show around our base."

The camera spun around and the director started walking through what appeared to be a fall-out shelter. Andrew rabbitted on a bit about the history of Sunnydale's fallout bunker while the audience talked amongst themselves.

Buffy – "Uh, this video is from the future."

Willow, impatiently – "Yes. We know."

Buffy – "But you noticed how he said the fifth of March? And then he said that they were attacked two weeks ago? Well, the fifth of March is only about two weeks away. So whatever they are, they're probably going to attack about now."

Giles – "My lord. She's right."

Willow, on the verge of losing her patience – "Then we better keep watching so we know what is going to happen."

Andrew came up to a door guarded by what appeared to be platoon of rangers.

Andrew, to the rangers – "Uh, I've got clearance."

None of the rangers said anything. They just looked at him blankly.

Andrew, almost pleading – "Honestly."

Finally one of the rangers spoke – "Are you going in or not?"

Andrew didn't reply. Instead, he walked through the door into a large room full of people and the volume rose from the noise in that room. As the camera panned around, they recognized people in the room.

Faith was slumped down on the ground, balling her eyes out into Tara's shoulder as the blonde comforted her.

The camera panned up to what looked like a small make shift war room at one end. There was a large table with maps scattered on it and people surrounding it.

Xander was arguing with a raven-haired girl who was holding Dawn by the throat. Both Xander and the girl were wearing tight leathers, although the girl's clothes were vastly more skimpy and had a sort of Xena wannabe look as opposed to Xander's biker gear.

The girl wasn't ugly but she did look battle hardened and by the way she was man-handling Dawn, mercy wasn't one of her virtues.

The girl threw Dawn aside and grabbed Xander by the hair, growling something at him and then pushing him away.

That's when they noticed the eye-patch covering one of Xander's eyes and they realized that it wasn't their Xander but the one from the future.

On screen, Willow spoke to the leathered girl, obviously pleading for peace but the camera's microphone couldn't pick out any precise words.

But as Andrew walked closer and the words started becoming clearer.

Willow – "We're all on the same side here."

Dawn, rubbing her throat – "Yeah. I never did anything to you."

Andrew pointed the camera up and down the raven-haired girl and finally kept it looking down at their ass as he spoke.

Andrew, whispering – "That's Ocean. She's calls herself a Valkyrie. I'm not really sure what she's doing here but she wants to be in charge."

Then the camera pointed up and Xander who was scowling at Ocean.

Andrew, still whispering – "And that's Xander. He's a vampire, cursed to be Willow's slave. That's Willow there. The red head."

The camera panned to Willow who looked directly at it with a frown. The camera turned back to Xander who seemed to be thinking at the moment.

Andrew – "Xander wants to be in charge too but I think he's way smarter than Ocean. He's the one who thought up the idea of going back in time and he's the one who gave me my mission to make this movie. The going back in time idea seems to be running into a snag though. But he swears that he's done it before. How he did that without a spaceship, I don't know. Going faster than the speed of light within an atmosphere just isn't viable."

Xander and Ocean stopped arguing for a moment to look across the room. There was some fuzz on the sound channel for a few seconds so the scoobies couldn't understand what was being said. When the sound came back, Ocean was yelling.

Ocean, the Valkyrie – "Someone just shut that vampire up!"

Willow groaned and did some yelling too – "Drusilla. How many times do I have to say it? Shut up!"

The camera panned over to where Drusilla yelped and shrunk into herself as if hurt by Willow's words. Spike was by her side, consoling her and giving Willow a look that promised frogs in her bed.

Andrew started to talk again but was cut off as static overtook the screen and buzzed out the sound.

Buffy – "Drusilla? What was she doing there?"

Giles – "That is a very good question."

Buffy – "Okay, I know I'm not the most popular person right now but doesn't it seem a little strange that this video is only a few weeks in the future and Drusilla is in it?"

Willow – "What do you mean? The way we weren't staking her, I probably just performed another discipline spell on her."

Buffy – "Well, yeah but think about it. Angelus only reformed the Judge for Drusilla's birthday. Which strangely was right next to mine. And Angelus wouldn't've even have known about Acathla if Drusilla didn't tell him about it. Angelus was never big on apocalypse and whatever happened in this video, it sounds apocalyptic."

Cordelia – "So what? Angelus was just big on torture and killing people?"

Buffy – "Exactly! Drusilla is apocalypse chick. I'd bet five large that whatever trouble the future is into, Drusilla caused it."

Everyone considered what Buffy said for a moment.

Willow – "Five large what?"

Buffy, frowning – "I don't know. It's just something people say. Isn't it?"

Cordelia – "So what do we do, vamp girl? You know Drusilla better than any of us. How would we find her?"

Buffy thought about it and then it clicked.

Buffy – "Spike. We find Spike. We find her. So where's Spike?"

Everyone turned to Willow.

Willow – "What?"

Giles – "Willow. You were in charge of handling Spike?"

Willow – "No, I'm not. Since when?"

Cordelia – "But you're the only one who can command him around. You mean you don't know where he is right now?"

Willow, shrinking in on herself – "Sorry. I don't."

Giles, groaning – "Well, that's bloody great. Whose brilliant idea was it to leave William the bloody to his own devices? He's probably half way to Istanbul by now."

Buffy – "It doesn't matter. Spike's still in town because he's in this video. We find Spike then we find Dru."

Willow – "I don't know. Is she that predictable?"

Buffy nodded – "Yup. There are only two things in the universe she loves. Apocalpsi and Spike… Oh and Angelus too but you know, so not gonna happen."

O-O-O-O

Back at the warehouse, Xander had started to come out of the daze he was in.

As he did, he realized what had happened to him and he was having trouble believing it.

Firstly, why would he drink Buffy's blood like that? Oh sure, he remembered doing that but why would he? So not like him.

Secondly, wasn't he supposed to be evil now? He didn't feel evil. Oh sure, his twin from the future was a weirdo but at least he was evil. They even admitted to being evil. But he just didn't feel that evil.

No. He felt horny.

Really horny.

So horny he was having trouble thinking.

Actually, this wasn't all that new an experience for him. After all he was just an ordinary red blooded guy.

He frowned as he thought about that. Not the teenager part but the blood part.

The watchers had left him a cup of blood to drink but Xander's stomach hitched a little when he experimentally sniffed at it earlier. What he wouldn't do for a six pack of twinkies right about now.

If he was a vampire then he should like that stuff and thus he concluded that this was some sort of strange psychedelic experience than he would soon wake up from. Also, he wasn't being held by the watcher's council. No, he was in a police holding cell.

Although that didn't really explain why they left him some blood and how Angel was in the next cell along but his brain could only process so much at once so he let it rest for a while.

A female watcher walked by the cell and Xander literally started salivating with his mouth open.

Jumping off his bed, he shook his head vigorously to clear it of unwanted lust.

As he looked back down at his bed he noticed that there were leather straps attached to the sides for restraining people down. A little smile crept open his face as he thought about strapping Buffy down with them.

One of the watchers knocked on the bars to his cell.

Random watcher guy – "Hey. Everything okay in there?"

Xander, jumpy – "Uh. Yeah. Just getting a little stir crazy. Nothing to worry about."

The watcher frowned and kept going on his way.

Maybe he was a vampire. It would explain why vampires were so stupid if they're always driven to distraction by their hormones. It would also explain why a sweet creature like Buffy would turn into such a sex crazed maniac.

Why else would she have sex with Larry?

He thought about distracting himself by talking to Angel and quickly wondered where that insane thought came from.

So what if he was a vampire? That's no excuse to mingle with other vampires and do .. vampire things.

Xander nodded his head with clear decision in his eyes, swearing a silent oath never to become what he hated. No vampire things for him.

Xander, groaned – "Would've been good to start with not becoming a vampire, dumb ass."

Before Xander could continue his inner diatribe anymore, there was a loud crash which was quickly followed by screams for help.

He ran up to bars to his cell and tried to spot what was going on. That was when his enhanced hearing cut in and he heard the sounds of feral vampires on the rampage. He also heard what sounded like apples being bitten into.

Then he realized that it wasn't apples he heard but necks and he winced.

Some watchers ran by his cell and he yelled out for them – "Hey. Let me out!"

Then he heard those same watchers come to a messy end, screaming and flailing around as they were bitten down to size.

Xander shivered involuntarily as part of him died inside. He thought his death back at the library was going to be the end of him but now, he really was going to die.

Unless…

They were vampires and he's a vampire too. Maybe he could get them to free him and just let him go? His luck had to change some time.

Then one of the watchers stopped outside his cell, all panting and sweaty with fear. He remembered her as the lady who kept taking blood samples.

Damn she was hot. Scientist chicks are hot. Those frocks just show off everything.

Gwen – "If I let you go, will you get me out of here? We're surrounded by vampires."

Xander considered this. On one hand, this would probably get him killed but on the other… who was kidding?

Xander, sighing – "I'll get you out of here."

They unlocked the door and Xander came out, looking at Gwen for directions. When none were given he took her by the arm.

Xander, leading her away – "This way."

Gwen – "What about Angel? Aren't we going to save him too?"

Xander, dismissively – "Pff. Leave him."

Xander kept pulling her by the arm and two other vampires walked down the hallway in the opposite direction. He didn't really want a confrontation right now so he decided to turn his brand spanking new vampire face on.

But nothing happened.

He frowned and tried again, looking a little constipated as he did.

While he kept trying the two vampire's kept walking by him, one of them sniffing at him as they did.

Sniffing vampire – "You alright?"

Xander – "Uh, yeah. Great. Thought I'd take this one somewhere quiet and get to know her."

The vampire looked Gwen up and down and smirked – "Like them a bit older, do you? Each to their own, bud."

Xander turned away and kept yanking on Gwen. For her part, she acted the victim with little whines and whimpers.

As they walked down the hallway, Xander frowned in thought.

Back when he was alive, he was able to get a partial vampire face just by having another vampire him in the same universe. But now that he was an official vampire, he couldn't even pull that off. It didn't make a whole lot of sense since other vampires were born with it on. Luckily it didn't seem to matter right now as the other vampires didn't seem to question his allegiance.

Xander, whispering – "You got a stake on you?"

Gwen shook her head.

Xander, under his breath – "Damn."

As they turned a corner, they came across a grisly scene. Five watchers lay dead with even more vampires still drinking from them. Two more vampires held guard over the fire escape doors out. Xander frowned, realizing that whoever stormed this warehouse had minions to spare.

Despite Gwen's protest, or perhaps prodded into action by them, Xander kept moving towards the fire escape doors. When he reached them the guard looked at him oddly.

One of the guard – "What's with the broad?"

Xander – "Boss wants her alive. Told me to take her outside."

The guards stiffened slightly at the mention of the "Boss" and opened the doors for him.

Once he was outside, they quickly closed the doors too.

Xander glanced around outside and didn't see or hear any vampires on this side of the warehouse.

Xander, letting her arm go – "Coast looks clear. Let's go."

They started running into the woods behind the back of the warehouse. They weren't going in any particular direction, just away from the warehouse packed full of vampires.

After they reached the top of a rise, Gwen panted out – "Wh-wait up."

Xander looked back at her and frowned – "Oh. Sorry. I forgot some people need to breathe."

Gwen, stopping – "We need to get help. Have you got a cellphone?"

Xander patted himself down and found his cellphone in his back pocket. He pulled out and gave it to her.

She didn't use it immediately though. Instead, she took the time to catch her breath, looking Xander up and down in a cold, discerning way.

She didn't seem too shaken up about seeing all her friends die but then people react to stress differently. She could just have a delayed response. Either that or she had a watcher's personality with extra starch in it.

Finally she opened up the cellphone and tried to get it to work.

Gwen – "How do you turn it on?"

Xander – "You push the.. yeah, that button."

Gwen – "Then how come it's not turning on?"

Xander – "Oh. Uh. The batteries are flat."

Gwen groaned and gave him the cellphone back.

Gwen – "We need a phone that works."

Xander, looking back at the warehouse – "Umm, was there any particular reason why a gang of vamps just raided your warehouse?"

Gwen looked at him with a confounded look – "No. None that I can think of. Unless they're interested in cutting edge diagnostic equipment."

Xander – "So there was nothing else in there except for a bunch of equipment?"

Gwen shook her head – "No. Unless you count yourself. Yourself and Angelus."

O-O-O-O

Back in the warehouse, Angel was strapped down in a gurney and being wheeled around by a vampire he knew all too well.

Drusilla, with an unusual gentle menace – "Don't fret, Daddy. I'm here to take all your cares away. Then we can dance like we used to. Dance free!"

Drusilla trilled with joyous laughter as she spun the gurney around in circles.

Angel – "Dru. I'm getting dizzy."

Drusilla stopped spinning and looked down at Angel with a sudden serious look. Angel knew what that look meant and didn't like it one bit.

Drusilla clapped into the air for service.

Drusilla – "Bring in the vice."

Vampires surrounded the gurney from both sides and restrained Angel's head. His eyes went wide as one of the vampires held something above his head. It looked metal and useful for torture. The other vampires around the bed pulled open his lips and tried to pry open his mouth. They were only having limited success until the vice was brought down gently between his teeth. Once it was in place, they turned a handle to the vice and it pried open Angel's mouth like the Jaws of Life.

He made some of those strange gargle sounds people do when you pry their mouths open but that was about all he could do. Once the vice had fully opened his mouth, Drusilla pulled out a small medicine eye dropper bottle from somewhere

Drusilla, unscrewing the bottle carefully – "Don't worry. You are really going to like this."

She held the dropper above Angel's open mouth and Angel's eyes went wide, pleading for her not to do whatever it was that she was about to do. Of course, she didn't heed him any care and she let a drop of the deadly liquid go and it splashed against the back of his throat.

Blood instantly rushed through his veins in strange and unsettling ways and for a few moments, he felt alive again.

But the effect was short lived and Angel frowned when they unwound the vice and pulled it out of his mouth.

He wasn't sure what Drusilla had done to him but he didn't feel any more happy or any less soulful. Although, he did feel more energized, more invigorated and even a little eager for some odd reason.

The damage his body had incurred from traveling to Acathla's hell dimension didn't seem to bother him that much anymore. Perhaps Drusilla had given him some sort of anesthetic or a magical potion that makes one forget their problems.

Buffy, Drusilla, surrounded by vampires and several lifetimes of sowing death and deceit. Nope. He remembered all his problems so what was it?

Then Drusilla crawled up onto the gurney with a wicked grin as she traced the outlines of the raging hard-on in his pants.

Angel looked down in confusion. That wasn't there a minute ago.

Drusilla – "Hush now, daddy. I'm going to make it all better."

Angel, groaning – "You can't be serious."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	36. 12c My favorite hell

Author notes – Here's a new chapter. It didn't turn out that well but I'm hoping to do better with the following chapters.

O-O-O-O

Drusilla cooed happily as she rode Angel with a fast paced circular grind.

For his part, Angel stared at the ceiling, glaring at it as if it was a stain that wouldn't come out. Despite his resolve, he couldn't stop his body reacting to Drusilla and her hard work. Yet again, she brought him to the brink and he gritted his teeth as he tried his best not to enjoy it.

Drusilla, faltering as her own climax came upon her - "Give it to me, Daddy. Give it to baby."

Angel looked up at her as she arched back and kept pushing through her orgasm. He knew she couldn't keep it up for much longer, that even vampires had their limits. As she slumped down onto his chest, with tears in her eyes and a sob to voice, he knew she had reached hers.

Drusilla, moping - "Don't you love me anymore?"

Angel's face softened. There would always have a place in his heart for his favorite childe, no matter what she did to him.

Angel, weakly – "I still love you, Dru."

Drusilla screamed suddenly and thumped him in the chest, in a rage.

Drusilla - "Then why aren't you HAPPY YET?"

Drusilla fumed at him while she still held him inside her and Angel tried to keep his focus away from where they were attached.

Angel, sighing – "Dru, you can't just force someone to be happy. It doesn't work that way."

Drusilla touched his mouth gently, with that forlorn look that Angel knew was real. Then suddenly inspiration hit her and her mouth curled deviously.

Angel, concerned – "Dru. What are you thinking?"

Drusilla, conspiratorially – "I know what will make you happy. She will make you forget everything."

O-O-O-O

Wesley walked into his apartment and switched on the light, illuminating what appeared to be the living room. Like Giles, his entire living quarters seemed to be just another study. There was a hefty wooden bookshelf along one wall, although it only had a few books at the moment as Wesley had just moved in.

He was just about to start talking when he realized that Faith hadn't followed him in. Instead, she was at the front door.

Wesley – "Oh, how rude of me. Faith, I invite you in."

The barrier disappeared and Faith frowned.

Faith – "Aww hell man. You had to ruin my fun."

Wesley, unsure of himself – "I'm sorry?"

Faith – "I thought the whole invitation deal was just a guideline. I guess Buffy wasn't pulling my chain about the magic invisible barrier part."

Wesley – "Oh, you haven't encountered sanctity of the hearth before."

Faith, walking inside – "Uh, what?"

Wesley, explaining – "Sanctity of the hearth. It's the barrier which keeps uninvited vampires out of homes of the living."

Faith, annoyed – "Oh, then why didn't say that?"

Wesley, mumbling to himself - "Yes, why indeed."

Faith – "Guess there's no more B&E in my future. Gotta stick to grand theft auto from here on out."

Wesley, alarmed – "Eh-excuse me?"

Faith smirked and looked Wesley up and down.

Faith – "So, you wanna be my watcher?"

Wesley – "Well, yes. I believe we went over this earlier."

Faith nodded slowly as if thinking to herself then looked back at Wesley with a discerning eye.

Faith – "Soooo, you'll be doing what for me? Helping me train?"

Wesley, happy to blow his own horn – "Train you, guide you, educate you and inform you in everything Slayer related."

Faith – "And I guess you want me to trust you too?"

Wesley – "Well, yes. Trust is what binds a Slayer to their Watcher."

Faith – "So you'd never do anything to, just saying, to put me in unnecessary danger. Would you?"

Wesley – "No, of course not. Why would I?"

There was a sharp slap sound and Wesley suddenly found himself on the ground, holding his throat where Faith had just hit him.

Faith, smirking down at him – "Now let's try that again. As my watcher, would you put your Slayer in unnecessary danger?"

Wesley choked a little bit as he tried to force the words out but eventually got it.

Wesley – "No. Never."

Faith winced as if in pain as she gently slid one of her boots under his back. Then she kicked up, heaving Wesley off the floor and launching him onto his sofa. When he hit the sofa, it toppled over and he kept rolling onto the floor.

When he tried to get up onto his hands and knees, Faith pushed him back down.

Faith, sounding pleased with herself – "Okay. One more try. Try to get it right this time. As my watcher, would you put your Slayer in unnecessary danger?"

Wesley thought about it frantically. Obviously Faith was evil and liked hurting him so maybe it didn't matter what he said. But maybe if he gave in then he could find some way to escape.

Wesley, ready for more pain – "Yes?"

Faith rolled him back onto the sofa and then righted the sofa upwards to it's normal standing position. At first he was confused and then Faith jumped over the sofa and landed on top of him with a feral grin.

Faith – "Finally you speak the truth."

Wesley – "But I'm here to help you."

Slap! went Faith's hand across his face.

Faith, grinning – "Now that's enough of that. See, I know more about watchers than I let on so you can't lie to me. Watchers don't help Slayers live. They help them die. If they really cared for them then they would die for them. But no, Slayers die all the time. Do watchers? Not as much I'm afraid. Look for Giles for an example. He's got grey hairs."

Wesley – "But Slayers who die do it to save humanity."

Faith, shrugging – "Yeah. Maybe. But then what about those ones who were killed by their watchers for no good reason?"

Wesley gave Faith a patented confused look.

Faith – "You do know what I'm talking about, don't you? Or do I have to slap you again?"

Wesley – "I don't –"

Slap!

Wesley, trying to stay polite – "Can you stop assaulting me, please?"

Faith – "Man, I'm just putting you in your place. You've got to understand how this is going down."

Wesley – "And just how is that?"

Faith, smirking – "I'm always on top. Now, just so you know, I know all about the surprise eighteenth birthday party the watchers spring on their slayers. That's right. I know what you watcher sickos like to do with little girls like me, like to stick them with needles then throw them in a cage with rabid vamps on their eighteenth birthdays. Xander told me all about it."

Faith lost her smirk and let her game face morph on, which made Wesley squirm underneath her in a very distracting way.

Faith, inching closer to his neck – "The council has already done a lot of messed up things to Buffy and she's not even eighteen yet. But I'm not as forgiving as Buffy when it comes to betrayal. So you screw with me and you will you die. You understand?"

Wesley, terrified – "Yes."

Faith, smiling with her game face on – "Good boy. Now, you'll play watcher for me and keep the council happy but don't forget, if you think for one second that you're my boss then its slapping time again. Maybe breaking time too."

Wesley, stammering – "I-I understand."

Faith, with a decidedly hungry look – "But it's not all bad. Since you're my watcher, that means you get perks."

Wesley wasn't sure what she meant by that until Faith kissed him hungrily, her lips almost swallowing his with her need.

As her hands crept south, he flinched and grabbed hold of her, moaning into her mouth as she unzipped his pants and tugged something out.

She broke off the kiss so laugh at him oddly.

Faith, egging him on - "Come on. Get hard, you pussy. Can't really start without you."

Then Faith's cellphone started buzzing loudly in the side pocket of her chaps and she groaned. She pulled the cellphone out but didn't release Wesley.

Faith, yelling into the phone – "This had better be fucking important!"

She paused to listen and frowned.

Faith, suddenly very quiet – "Oh. Uh, we'll be right there."

She snapped the phone shut and got off the couch.

Wesley, tidying himself up and tucking things away – "What happened?"

Faith – "The watchers have been attacked by vampires."

Wesley, jumping out of the sofa – "What!"

Faith - "But after we kill them, remember, you're going to screw my brains out. So don't go anywhere."

O-O-O-O

It had been a quiet night at the Summers household with Joyce and Tara watching a documentary on TV. Dawn had squeezed in between them and after she had decided the documentary didn't look that bad after all.

Then there was a loud thud against the front door, followed by a mournful groan.

Joyce got up to check the front door before the other two had a chance to stop her. She opened it cautiously to find Spike leaning against the door. By the smell of him, he had been drinking.

Spike, mumbling – "Ow. I was leaning on that."

Joyce, worried – "Spike? Oh, let's get you inside."

Joyce helped Spike to his feet and helped him inside. He was a bit heavy for Joyce so she leaned him down on the stairs for a breather.

Joyce – "I'll warm up some blood for you. Just stay there."

Joyce moved off to the kitchen, leaving Tara and Dawn to watch Spike. While they were watching, Spike brought out a pocket flask and tried to unscrew it. Before he could, Dawn pulled it out of his grip.

Spike, angered – "Hey. Whas the idea?"

Dawn, trying to be stern – "You've drunk enough. Why did you come here to drink anyway?"

Spike, as if it was obvious – "If I drink in the streets, policemen take me away."

Spike reached out for the flask but Dawn kept it out of his reach. Spike tried a different tactic after the first miss and pulled Dawn down to him and held her against the railings.

Spike, smiling drunkenly at her - "You're really cute."

Dawn, slipping out of his hands – "Okay. Now we really need to get you to bed."

Spike, smirking – "That's a step in the right direction. Hey, wherezat-wherezat blonde Buffy that keeps clinging to you? You lose her or sommink?"

Dawn – "No. She's sleeping upstairs, so ssh. I don't want to wake her."

Spike, hollering up the stairs – "Hey Buffy!"

Dawn handed back the flask and Spike shut up with a smile as he finally managed to unscrew it. He tilted it back for a drink but it was already empty.

Going through the drill he had already done half a dozen times that night, he groaned, screwed the lid back on and slid it back into his jacket.

With nothing else to drink in sight, he studied Dawn and Tara. Buffy's coltish fledgling definitely was on the cute side but just didn't do anything for him. He couldn't say the same for Tara though, whose body reacted very strongly to Dawn's continual touch. He wondered if Dawn knew what those yummy smells from Tara actually meant.

Tara, with deep soulful concern – "Spike. Why do you do this to yourself?"

Spike – "What else am I supposed to do? Can't be a vampire, is what wrong. Can't hunt. Can't fight. Can't even commit crime. So what am I supposed to do, huh? Be the warm fuzzy vampire like Buffy?"

Dawn – "I don't hunt or fight or commit crimes.. much.. and I'm okay."

Spike sighed – "And you don't even see how wrong that is."

Dawn – "How about, uh, we're watching a documentary about insects. Do you wanna watch it too?"

At first Spike didn't even seem to acknowledge that Dawn asked the question. Then his lip trembled and he closed his eyes as he started crying. Slowly, he hunched over and started sobbing pitifully.

Spike, between sobs – "I do. I do wanna watch it. I'm pathetic."

Tara – "You're not pathetic."

Dawn raised an eyebrow at Tara, amazed how well she could lie.

Spike, scornfully – "No. I'm not pathetic. I'm the warm fuzzy vampire. I wont bite you or rip your throat out with my unnatural strength. I'd never do that."

Dawn reached down and helped Spike to his feet, lifting him from under his arm.

Dawn – "Come on, uncle Spike. We're missing the documentary."

Tara – "Uncle Spike?"

Dawn, walking Spike into the lounge room – "Well, yeah. He's my vamp uncle, like how Buffy's my vamp mom."

Tara, confused – "Wouldn't he be more like a nephew?"

Dawn sat down on the sofa, dropping Spike down with her. Once they were down, Spike snuggled into Dawn, looping his arms around her waist and resting his head on her chest.

The look of horror on Dawn's face was comical and she lifted both her arms above her head as if trying to keep them out of cold water.

Dawn, screechily – "Spike. What are you doing!"

Spike, having fun teasing Dawn – "Snuggling."

Tara watched the affair with a surprised smile.

Tara – "You like to snuggle but you don't like being snuggled against?"

Dawn, trying to pry Spike off – "What? I like all types of snuggling but not this. He's groping me."

Tara couldn't help but giggle as Dawn got some of her own medicine for once.

Joyce came back with a tray of coffee mugs and looked on the scene with some amusement.

Then there was a knock at the door and Joyce put the tray down on a table next to the door.

Joyce, opening the door with a smile – "Hello. How may I help you?"

Drusilla looked back with a similar smile, holding her gaze for a few long seconds.

Drusilla – "I'm looking for Buffy. Can I wait inside?"

Joyce – "Please. Come in."

Drusilla glided through the door way and gently grabbed a handful of Joyce's hair.

When they saw her, both Spike and Dawn gasped.

Dawn was the first to react though, charging Drusilla with nothing more than a need to protect Joyce.

Drusilla released Joyce to brutally deflect Dawn, throwing her out the doorway only to land in a very painful way outside.

This seemed to have broken the spell on Joyce and she backed away in horror at what stood in front of her.

Spike, getting off the couch – "Dru, darling, you can't be here."

Drusilla, with a creepy bone-chilling smile – "This is destiny, can't you see?"

Spike and Tara shared a look. Spike realized that Tara obviously didn't know who Drusilla was and Tara realized that Spike obviously knew her quite well.

Seeing nothing else for it, Spike let an agitated sigh.

Spike, with resolve – "Sorry ducks but there's nothing else for it. Can't let the slayer get you."

Then Spike dashed forwards with one-two punch that Drusilla dodged with unexpected grace. When Spike brought up his leg into her ribs, she blocked it and drove a knee into his solar plexus.

Spike went down in shock while Tara swung a lampshade at her. Tara missed her by a mile and as her hit went wide, Drusilla came up behind her and grabbed her, pulling her close. But Drusilla didn't bite straight away. Instead, she decided to play a little.

Tara gasped as Drusilla gently blew on ear.

Drusilla – "This is what you want, isn't it? It's what you dream of. I can feel your dreams screaming out to me. So bright. So very bright."

Spike got off the ground and lunged at them both. There was a slight struggle that ended before it had even started properly. Spike fell off both of them and fell to the ground in an unconscious, slightly twitching heap. Tara didn't understand why until she saw the cattle prod in Drusilla's free hand.

Drusilla, whispering to Tara again – "Now where were we?"

Without warning, Drusilla sank her teeth into Tara's neck. Tara cried out in pain as Drusilla forcibly drank from her. Then, all of sudden, Tara was thrown to the ground hard. Delirious from the sudden loss of blood pressure, she looked up to find Lambronazi going toe to toe with Drusilla. Obviously Lamb had been woken up due to the ruckus.

Unlike Spike, Lamb wasn't drunk and Drusilla was having a hard time fighting the enraged Slayer.

Tara felt someone dragging her away and found that it was Joyce, dragging her towards the kitchen and away from the fight.

Joyce – "Keep pressure on the wound."

Tara put her hand up to her neck and found it be slick with blood but tried to keep her hand over the bite.

Joyce already had the first aid kit out and was pulling out a strip of gauze when the fighting between Drusilla and Lambronazi in the hallway died all of a sudden.

Joyce found herself unsure what to do but eventually settled with bandaging Tara up. She took Tara's hand away and replaced it with cotton buds and tightly wound gauze.

Tara started going under and Joyce shook her gently, pulling her up to elevate the wound.

Joyce – "Stay awake. Just keep breathing. Okay?"

Tara, weakly – "Okay."

With that said and done, Joyce stood up and took a look into the hallway. All she saw was Dawn stumbling in through the main doors with a lost look.

Dawn – "She took Lambie."

O-O-O-O

Ten minutes later and Buffy ran through the front door, followed by Faith, Xander and Giles. They had assembled together to storm the warehouse but when Joyce rang them up, they took a detour back to the Summers household, hopeful to catch Drusilla on the way back.

Buffy – "Mom!"

Joyce, in the kitchen – "Through here, honey."

Buffy came through to the kitchen, ignoring Spike who was passed out in the lounge room and found Dawn and Joyce in the kitchen, fussing over Tara.

Faith appeared behind Buffy with a look of shock on her face.

Faith – "Tara. Damn. Are you okay?"

Tara, grumbling - "Getting bit hurts."

Faith frowned – "Yes. Getting bit hurts."

Tara – "I'm okay. Really. Go do your hero thing."

Buffy, as Giles and Xander entered behind her – "What happened?"

Dawn – "It was that creepy Drusilla. She came in and she had Joyce and we.. She was too strong. She took Lambie. She had an electric cattle prod with her and Lambie doesn't even know what one of those is. And she ran down the road with them."

Buffy, patting Dawn's hair gently – "Its okay, Dawn. We're going to stop her. She's strong but we're stronger."

Xander watched Buffy holding Dawn in a reassuring way and couldn't stop the unsettling images passing through his mind. But damn he was horny. It was getting past the point of distraction and becoming painful. Even Dawn was starting to look good to him.

Dawn looked up at him and caught the look he was giving her. She immediately looked down and then looked back up to see if she actually saw what she thought she had seen. On the second look, Xander had focused on something else and so she decided to peg it up to stress.

Buffy – "Will you three be okay until we get back?"

Joyce - "I think so."

Dawn gave Buffy a determined look that looked adorable and not serious at all on her.

Dawn – "I'm coming with you."

Buffy blinked at her and shook her head in a not so cute way – "No, you're not."

Dawn – "Buffy! They took Lamb. I've got to go!"

Buffy – "Dawn. We're going to be fighting a swarm of vampires and I won't be able to protect you while I'm fighting them. I'll be too busy keeping myself alive."

Dawn – "Hey, I can fight."

Buffy raised a skeptical eyebrow but finally sighed – "Fine. But if you die then you're really going to regret it. Let's go."

They started lining out through the front door and Dawn looked at Xander again.

Dawn – "Uh, Xander, are you.."

Buffy, bluntly – "He's a vampire now."

Dawn – "Ah. So that's what it was. Hey, do we have weapons? I think weapons would be good."

Buffy groaned – "Yes! We have weapons!"

Dawn – "I'm just saying."

Buffy – "I can tell I'm going to regret letting you come along."

O-O-O-O

Willow was still busy in the audio-visual room, watching the static of the burnt out video tape playing on the screen. Cordelia was still there on a nearby but wasn't watching anything. She wasn't asleep but with the dead look on her face, she might as well have been.

Then Willow's cellphone rang, jingling along to a cheerful rendition of "Copacabana."

She opened it up and held it across her jaw.

Willow – "Hello?"

The voice that came through from the other line chilled her blood.

Xander – "Willow?"

Willow gulped and replied quietly in kind – "Xander."

Willow looked across at Cordelia and realized that if the tall brunette had heard her then she wasn't showing it.

Xander – "It's the other Xander. The older one."

Willow – "Oh. Why are you calling?"

There was a long pause on the line as the other Xander decided what to say.

Xander – "I wanted to hear your voice. I .. I wanted to talk to someone."

Willow – "Is everything okay?"

Xander – "Yeah. Just a screwed up day is all."

Willow – "You don't say. We've had a pretty strange day here too. Umm, why don't you go first? It sounds like you need to get something off your chest."

Xander – "Where to start? Well, guess I could tell you where I am. I'm just a few hours away in LA."

Willow – "What are you doing there?"

Xander – "You know how I told you about those face eaters?"

Willow – "Yes."

Xander – "Well, I've been looking into them and guess what I've found?"

Willow – "Nothing? That's all we've found."

Xander – "Exactly. Nothing at all. Until last week."

Willow – "You've got a lead?"

Xander – "I thought I did but it ended in weirdness."

Willow - "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Xander – "Okay. It's like this. I heard about this couple called the Oracles. Like the oracles of myth, they answer questions. So I thought, hey, what do I have to lose? So I went through this portal to meet them and that's when it started to get a little strange."

Willow – "What did you find out?"

Xander – "Nothing. That's the strange part. Instead of answering my question, they gave me one. Before I even had a chance to ask my question, they asked me what I'd give up to stop the face eaters from destroying humanity. I didn't even mention anything about the face eaters so obviously these two really were prophetic or at least very well informed. So, anyway, I told them I'd sell my kidney, cut off my left pinky finger and sell my comic book collection. That didn't go down that well with them."

Willow – "Maybe they were looking for something a little more symbolic."

Xander – "Obviously. And that's when they asked me if I'd give up my life to stop them. But the way they were asking it, they wanted to know if I'd give my life up right there! In front of them."

Willow – "What did you say?"

Xander – "Well. I thought about it and they promised me that if I didn't give my life up right there then the face eaters would destroy our world. So I asked them how killing me would save the world. They said it wouldn't only that if I didn't give my life to them then the world would surely be doomed. So I thought about it. I mean, hey, I'm evil, right? What do I care if the world is doomed? But then.. I know lame this is but I thought of you."

Willow – "Of me?"

Xander – "Yeah. I know, I know. You don't want to hear it but I love you."

Willow, awkwardly – "And I kind of like you too."

Xander hemmed a little and Willow thought she heard him sniffing on the other end.

Xander - "So anyway, I said to hell with it and I told them that I'd give my unlife up if it meant saving my friends. And the two Oracles got this really strange smile and suddenly I wasn't sure they were the good guys anymore. But before I could do anything, I fainted. No, I mean I blacked out. Guys don't faint."

Willow – "So what happened?"

Xander – "I don't know. I just woke up a few hours later in a dumpster. Wasn't half hungry either. If it wasn't for your spell on me, I would've bitten the first person I came across."

Willow – "So.. what was that about?"

Xander – "I don't know. But I've eaten more than enough since then but I still don't feel right. I think they did something to me."

Willow – "Xander. Something happened here. Something with our Xander."

Xander – "He's dead?"

Willow – "Not entirely. Just half way. He's a vampire."

Xander – "Really?.. oh man. That's kinda funny."

Willow – "No it's not."

Xander chuckled – "Uh, it is if you think about it."

Willow – "No, it's not!"

Xander – "Willow. Relax. I'll explain everything."

Willow silently fumed – "Okay. But first, tell me, what is that sound in the background?"

Xander – "Huh? Sound? Oh, that's just the prostitute I hired. She talks in her sleep. It's actually kinda cute. You'd like her."

O-O-O-O

Drusilla held Lamb's head in her hands and looked deep into her eyes, coaxing her along as the poor slayer kept up her hard work.

Drusilla – "Keep going, that's a good girl."

Lamb cooed and wheezed as her lower body shook violently, rocking back and forth at an insane speed with Angel inside her. Lamb was still wearing the white night gown she was wearing earlier but it was hiked up to pool around her waist.

Drusilla – "It's okay, beautiful one. He wants it too. Let it come to you."

Lamb cried out pitifully but she was powerless as her lower half kept slapping against Angel with supernaturally powered speed. As she peaked, Angel arched underneath her, driving himself deeper into her as his own climax came.

Drusilla looked down at Angel with fascination as his head rolled back and instead of fighting, his body started moving with Lambs. Finally, his reason and resolve had been shattered and he was starting to give into the torture. It was only a matter of time before he completely lost himself in the pleasure. When that happened Drusilla would untie him and Lamb would be the one tied down.

Remembering about Lamb, she looked up the blonde and found her with her eyes closed but with her hips still grinding back and forth as the passion worked its way out of her system. Drusilla shook Lamb's head a little and her eyes snapped open, only to be caught again in the darkest depths of Drusilla's own.

Drusilla – "Mommy's pleased. You've been very good. But you need to keep going if you want your surprise."

Lamb started rocking back and forth again and Drusilla smiled toothily.

While this was all going on, almost all of the vampire minions watched the show.

One of the other minions in the room turned to the minion next to him and nudged him in the ribs.

Minion #1, whispering – "Do we have to watch this? It's kinda creeping me out."

Minion #2 looked at them oddly – "No. But I kinda like it. That girl can really move."

Minion #1 turned around and mumbled something under his breath as he walked away.

When he reached the mouth of a hallway, a stake found itself lodged in his heart and he managed to yelp in fright before turning to dust.

When this happened, a few of the other minions turned around and found themselves confronted with a good sized portion of the Scooby gang.

Faith, Xander and Buffy drove into the vampires with zeal while Giles and Dawn showed vastly more caution.

Drusilla looked at them in horror and in shock. Then she looked back at Lamb who had slumped down on Angel's chest in exhaustion then back at Buffy in utter confusion.

Drusilla, hysterically – "No! How can this be?"

Before she could contemplate this conundrum, the battle asks for her attention in the form a crossbow wielding girl.

Dawn let loose a crossbow bolt but Drusilla snatched it out of the air before it lodged into her shoulder.

Drusilla threw the bolt away and power walked her way towards Dawn with lethal intent.

Dawn backpedaled but Drusilla was too quick, too forceful and got a hand around the teenager's throat before they had a chance to fight back anymore.

Drusilla, strangling Dawn – "I can hear you bleating. In my mind. You are a jigsaw piece and without you, the whole puzzle will burn. Or even better, it will bleed."

Dawn felt Drusilla force her way into her mind and Dawn cried out in pain as Drusilla's talon like nails dug into her throat, striking blood.

Buffy had mesmerized Dawn like this before but Drusilla was brutal and unfeeling in her infiltration of her mind.

Dawn remembered what she could of Buffy's teachings and focused her mind back on Drusilla.

Drusilla, laughing – "You can't fight me."

Dawn – "Tell that to the spiders."

Drusilla frowned and looked down to find a swarm of spiders crawling up her dress and she could feel them biting into her legs.

With a horrified squeal, she dropped Dawn and started patting at the spiders frantically.

Once she was on her feet again, Dawn picked up the crossbow and swung it heavily down on Drusilla's head, knocking her to the floor.

Drusilla rose back up wailing and thrashing in fury and Dawn pulled on her hair. Fighting through the pain, Drusilla lashed out clobbered Dawn across jaw and knocked the fledgling out. That was when Drusilla noticed that all the spiders had gone and realized that it must've been some sort of hypnotic suggestion that Dawn had placed inside her mind.

Before Drusilla got to celebrate her victory over the year old half-vampire, Buffy grabbed her from behind and threw her across the room into a wall.

After that, Drusilla got up dazed and tired in more ways than one.

Then Faith came at her from the side with a high kick that Drusilla blocked with annoyance. Faith followed it up with a one-two punch which Drusilla similarly blocked, infuriating Faith. Faith roared and spun with a flying round house kick that Drusilla intercepted by grabbing Faith in mid-air and, of all things, biting her in the rump.

Faith cried out in surprised shock as Drusilla literally tore a piece of out of her with her teeth then dropped Faith on her head.

But this was just a brief respite for Drusilla as Buffy attacked her yet again with a blindingly fast hook that clobbered Drusilla across the cheek and dropped her to the floor.

Buffy – "That's for trying to steal my boyfriend."

When Drusilla got to her feet, Buffy followed up with a low uppercut to her jaw which floored her again.

Buffy – "That was for Kendra."

Buffy kicked them in the ribs, breaking several and tossing them across the floorboards like a ragdoll.

Buffy – "And that's for hurting my family."

From the ground, Drusilla looked around for help but all of her minions had scampered, obviously overwhelmed with the prospect of fighting the slayers. She decided that it would be a really good idea to follow their example and she got to her feet in time to find Buffy waiting for her.

Buffy – "And this is for being a bitch in general."

Before Buffy got to do whatever she was going to do, Drusilla's eyes shot wide as if someone had stabbed her in the back.

Drusilla, bewildered – "Didn't see them."

Then, to Buffy's own bewilderment, Drusilla turned to dust in her grasp and she found herself looking at Dawn holding an arrow in her hands.

The warehouse went quiet for a while as Buffy's shock turned to annoyance.

Xander, to Giles – "Am I the only one who didn't see that coming?"

Buffy, erupting – "Dawn! We weren't supposed to kill her! We needed her for information."

Dawn – "Huh! What? No one told me that. I thought that's what you guys did. Slay vampires. Uh… slaying means that you kill them, doesn't it?"

Buffy groaned – "You really are the worst vampire ever."

Right then, Lamb groaned and slid off Angel onto the floor and everyone turned their way to see Angel's still very erect member.

Dawn's mouth did that funny goldfish thing while Xander spun around like he had slapped.

Xander – "Oh my god! I think I've gone blind."

Giles turned around too and decided that his glasses were in dire need of a good polishing.

Dawn, squeamishly – "Are those things supposed to look like that?"

Angel struggled but still couldn't get free from his restraints.

Angel, getting increasingly embarrassed – "Can someone help me here?"

Buffy jumped in front of Angelus to hide everyone's view.

Faith, with comical disappointment – "Awww, B. You've been holding out on us. You never told us your boy was packing heavy artillery like that."

Buffy ignored her to pull Angel's pants back up and try to get his manhood hidden underneath without much success.

Buffy – "Ugh, it's so slippery. How do guys deal with these things all the time?"

Angel, with obvious discomfort – "Buffy. Just untie me and I'll do it myself."

Buffy – "No. It's okay. I think I've got it."

Angel yelped in pain – "Arr! Don't do that. Just untie me and I'll do it."

Buffy sighed – "Okay. But everyone had better keep their eyes to themselves."

Faith – "I promise nothing. Hey, Xander, can you check out my ass?"

Xander, turning to look at Faith oddly – "What! Oh. Ow. When did that happen?"

While Xander tended to Faith with a first aid kit, Dawn tended to Lambronazi.

Dawn – "Lambie, are you okay?"

Lamb, dazed – "I can't feel my legs."

Dawn – "What? Oh god. You must have a spinal injury."

Buffy snorted – "Just give her a few minutes and she'll be fine."

Once Angel was freed he rolled off the table and tied himself up a little with his back turned.

Angel – "I .. need to use the rest room."

With that said, Angel walked into the toilets while several of the others watched him go.

Faith – "Whoa. Hold on. I just figured something out. He's evil now, isn't he?"

Dawn – "Holy cow! She's right. That witch made Lambie.. oh no."

Buffy growled – "He's not evil! I can tell."

Xander – "You can tell?"

Buffy – "Yes. I can tell. Besides, if he was evil then Drusilla would've untied him."

Faith – "But I thought if he got his end off that he turned evil. That's what Xander told me."

Buffy glared at Xander then at Faith.

Buffy - "That's not how it works at all. Look, can we talk about this later? Like when we've got Angel some place safer?"

Giles – "Where did you have in mind?

O-O-O-O

Fifteen minutes later and the Scoobies had reassembled at Buffy's house, although Giles had chosen not to join them. Spike also had somewhere else to be.

Angel was sitting on the couch with Buffy sitting on his knee to one side and Lambronazi sleeping against him on the other side. One of his arms was looped around Buffy and held a saucer. The other arm was resting across Lamb's shoulders and held the teacup. His face held a pained look and for the life of him he couldn't quite figure out how he got into this precise position.

By the looks Xander was sending his way, he wasn't the only one uncomfortable with this situation.

Joyce – "More tea?"

Angel, trying to be polite – "No. No thank you."

He looked around the room and thought that he really should have known the answers to the questions floating around his head.

The others in the room were sitting down on chairs or on the other couch or in Faith's case, lying on the floor. All of them except Angel and Lambronazi were eating Kentucky fried chicken. Angel wasn't eating because he was content with tea. Lambronazi wasn't eating because she was still asleep.

Faith was pecking at a chicken wing and was thinking very deeply.

Faith – "I was wondering. What if you fed a chicken the eleven herbs and spices? Would it still taste the same?"

Dawn – "Probably. Hey, have you ever noticed how this KFC tastes just like guinea pig before?"

Several people in the room stopped eating after she said that but Xander didn't. He was quite hungry and eating chicken seemed to help, much to his relief.

Tara, to Xander – "Xander. How are you doing?"

Xander – "As good as can be expected. It's just I don't feel that different. Not that I'm complaining about not being evil but shouldn't there be some difference?"

Buffy – "Trust me, Xander. If you haven't noticed a change by now then you will soon."

Faith – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Buffy – "That he just hasn't noticed any of the personality changes that come with being a vampire yet."

Faith – "Personality changes? I never got any of those."

Buffy snorted – "Yeah right."

Faith – "No, really. For me, being a vampire is just biological. Gotta drink blood and gotta stay away from open flames. That's about all the difference there's been for me. The whole evil thing is a load of crock."

Buffy – "I'm not saying you have to be evil just that, you know, there are certain shifts in perspective."

Faith shrugged – "I guess."

Xander – "I still can't believe this happened. I can say it, I'm a vampire, but I still can't quite believe it."

Faith, trying to sound helpful – "Hey, it's not all bad. There are advantages to being undead."

Xander – "Like what?"

Dawn – "Sleeping in."

Xander – "Sleeping in?"

Dawn - "Yup. When the sun comes up, you go to bed. When you wake up, the sun's still up so what are you going to do but sleep in?"

Xander - "Good point."

Buffy – "Oh, and no cellulite! Although, I don't think you have much to worry about in that department."

Angel – "Actually, that's not true. Vampires get cellulite."

Faith - "You know what I reckon is just weird about vampires? We can't use toilets. Trust me, I've tried. Nothing comes out."

Buffy – "I never really considered myself a big fan of toilets. And frankly, I'm thankful that we don't need to use them. If we did, whoa! With the amount of liquids we drink, we'd be spending half the day on them."

Faith – "But where does all the blood go? We don't sweat it out. We just drink gallons of blood every day and it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Don't you think that's a little odd?"

Buffy – "Not really. We're vampires! We're supposed to be mysterious."

Tara, sceptically – "But mysterious in that way? I don't know."

Buffy – "Why not? We can't use mirrors. That's even freakier if you ask me. In fact, the whole bathroom realm is kinda off limits for most of the vampire population. Which is a pity, they really could bathe more often."

Dawn sniffed herself and frowned at Buffy.

Buffy – "I wasn't talking about you, Dawn. Oh! and that's another thing. I think the best part about being a vampire is smellovision."

Faith – "Smellovision?"

Buffy – "Yeah. you know. How we can smell so fricken well."

Faith – "I don't really see what's so great about that."

Buffy – "Your nose just hasn't grown in yet. But let me tell you, it's great. You can use it for tons of stuff. Tracking people and demons, detecting drugs and gas leaks, umm.. actually that's about it. But I couldn't do any of those things before. It's like an entirely different world. But with smells."

Xander – "Oh. I get it. It's like how dogs stick their heads out the window in cars, so they can smell all the different things going by."

Buffy – "Again with the dogs. Xander, I'm not a dog."

Xander – "Sorry, Buffy. But you are kinda bloodhoundy and maybe a little pitbully at times too."

Faith – "I think my favorite part is that I've really mellowed out since she was turned."

Quite a few people in the room gave her odd looks.

Faith, explaining – "But that's probably got something to do with the whole slaying thing as opposed to the drinking blood thing. It's given me an outlet."

Buffy – "Outlets can be good."

Faith – "Talking about outlets, Xander, I hear vampire girls are easy."

Faith tilted her head towards Dawn and Xander gave her an unimpressed look.

Dawn gave Faith a little kick in the leg which made Faith yelped.

Faith – "Hey, I'm wounded there!"

Buffy – "Faith's right, Dawn. In this household, you don't kick people in their gaping wounds."

Angel, looking at Faith – "And.. who are you again?"

Faith – "Faith. The other slayer. And the hot blonde is Tara, my human minion who protects me during the daylight hours and does other menial jobs. Talking of which, Tara, could you help me up the stairs then cut my clothes off me so I can get to sleep?"

Tara looked at Faith with confusion – "You don't need my help to get undressed."

Faith – "Yes I do. I've got a chunk bitten out of my ass. Don't want to aggravate the wound, do I?"

Tara sighed – "Fine. But don't joke about this later, okay?"

By Faith's smirk, Tara knew that Faith wasn't going to go that easily on her.

As Tara helped Faith up the stairs to their room, Angel looked at Dawn and at Lambronazi, realizing that he didn't remember them either.

Buffy, watching his eyes – "That's Dawn. Our childe. Remember? And the other me is Lambronazi. We call her Lambie for short. She's a little complicated."

Angel, trying to comprehend all this – "And Xander's a vampire?"

Buffy nodded her head which made Angel groan.

Xander – "Yeah. I'm a vampire now. They'll just let anyone into the club now."

Joyce – "When did this happen?"

Dawn – "Yeah. You never told us about that. Did Drusilla do it?"

Xander sighed and put down his food – "No. It just happened a few hours ago. All of a sudden I was dying for no good reason at all and Buffy turned me."

There was a knock at the front door and Xander got up to get it with "I'll get it."

He opened the door to find Willow on the other side. In the background, he heard Cordelia's sports car drive off.

Willow, suddenly looking very white but strangely tasty – "Hey."

Xander, suddenly very shy – "Willow. Hey, come in."

They both avoided eye contact as Willow came in, cautiously on guard around Xander.

Buffy – "Hey Willow. What's up?"

Willow – "I know why Xander was dying before."

Xander, suddenly very interested – "Really? Why?"

Willow bit her bottom lip in a nervous way.

Willow – "It's like this. You know that other Xander? The one from the future?"

Xander – "Yeah. What about him?"

Willow – "He umm.. He kinda went to these prophetic demons and he was told that if he gave up his life then the world would have a chance against the face eaters. And umm, he said yes but instead of him dying, you did."

Xander blinked at her in confusion and denial.

Xander, suddenly very angry – "Wait. Wait! What! He WHAT?"

Willow – "He didn't know you would die. Remember that portal in the library, that's what the spell was. It was supposed to give us something that we needed to save the world but because of the whole siphoning your life through your evil twin, the spell screwed up."

Xander, growling loudly – "Obviously!"

Willow flinched back and Xander stopped growling immediately.

Xander – "Willow, I'm sorry but… where the hell did that growl just come from?"

Willow, in a very highly strung way – "Why are you asking me for? Oh, hello Angel. I'll just stand closer to you, shall I?"

Then Willow inched away from Xander, closer towards Buffy.

Buffy – "Don't worry about it, Xander. It's just part of who you are now. If you keep control of your emotions then you'll tend to not growl and hiss and do all those pesky things vampires do when they're agitated."

Xander, trying to relax – "Okay. I'm relaxing. This is me relaxing and not being a vampire."

Buffy – "That's good. Now look, I don't know about the rest of you but Lambie and me are dead beat. Dawn, want to help me with Lamb?"

Dawn dutifully helped extract Lambronazi from around Angel and carried the small vampire up the stairs, followed by Buffy.

Buffy, at the bottom of the stairs – "Hey, mom, its okay if Angel spends the night, isn't it?"

Joyce, a little unsure – "I guess he could use the bed in the basement. But where would Xander sleep? You wanted him to spend the night so you could cast a spell on him in the morning, remember?"

Buffy sighed – "Oh, that's right. Well, they could share. Or one of them could sleep on the couch."

Xander – "I'll go with the couch."

Buffy – "And Xander, I know you're new at this but I'm reminding you to really try to avoid sunlight in the morning."

Xander sighed – "For the last time. Yes. I know about sunlight."

Buffy smiled – "Good. Now if that's all, I'm off to bed."

Joyce called out goodnight along with a few other people giving similar farewells.

Joyce, to Willow – "Do you need a ride home?"

Willow – "No. That's fine. I'll walk."

Xander – "Then I'll walk with you. Better safe than sorry."

Willow hesitated, not entirely comfortable with Xander's new incarnation.

Xander, backing off – "On second thought, I'm kinda tired too."

Willow, with relief – "Yeah. So, I'll see at school?"

Xander, awkwardly – "Yeah. At school."

Neither of the childhood friends said anything for a while and then they both started talking at the same time then abruptly stopped, not wanting to interrupt the other.

It was finally Willow who got a full sentence in – "I should be going."

Xander, turning away – "Yeah. See ya."

And with that, Willow left through the front door, her heart thundering in her chest with too many emotions to name and Xander watched her go with his heart broken with no sound at all.

He knew that things would never be the same between them again.

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

Continued in next episode.


	37. 13a Man with a gun

Author notes –

I have a sneaking suspicion who it was but some anonymous person happened to nominate me and this fic in the Sunnydale memorial fanfiction awards AKA the SunnyD awards.

In other news, kudos to Howard Russell for bagging the runner-up prize for best Episode rewrite. You can find his FF page in my fav authors along with a link to the SunnyD awards along with his runner-up peice. I'veread it and found it to be nice and squishy in all the right uncomfortable places.

O-O-O-O

Xander's alarm clock rang off and without a word or a groan, he pushed the kill button.

His eyes opened calmly and he found himself staring at the ceiling.

Or in his case, the floor since he was sleeping in his basement.

It had been two weeks since he had been turned into a vampire by Buffy and despite the video warning from a possible future, no apocalypse had come knocking. He had even adapted to being a vampire, although not without Buffy's continual help.

It seemed that while Xander needed blood to survive, he couldn't just live on any sort of blood. The only blood that helped him had to come straight from Buffy, which more than just confused Giles. Dawn was eager to feed him hers but he couldn't keep hers down. Faith's blood was even worse if that was possible. Even more strange was that Lambronazi didn't work for him either and she was the closest thing to Buffy they could find. Finally the council gave him a sample of pure human blood and the results were the same. His body just wouldn't accept anything other than Buffy.

The strange part about all this was that humans were starting to look so very delicious to him and he couldn't understand why if they tasted so bad.

Buffy had been strangely quiet during the experimental blood letting of her peers and Xander got the impression that she knew something she wasn't telling. But then maybe she just liked keeping Xander dependant on her.

Despite the whole ickiness with Buffy, Xander had adapted to his new life and even the other Scoobies had grown more accustomed to their fallen comrade walking and talking amongst them.

Faith and Tara acted as usual while Cordelia kept the most distance. Buffy kept the least distance now and acted like his new mom. Willow was sweet and tried her best to be understanding while Giles was perhaps the least tolerant but the older man was at least polite about his misgivings. Oz tolerated him too with the idea that werewolves in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones.

All in all, Xander didn't have too badly and he couldn't complain considering that everyone thought that he was a soulless demon possessing the body of their dead friend. Buffy had even promised him that in time they would find some alternate food source for him so that he wouldn't need to keep slitting her wrists. The way Buffy had told him this, it was as if she already had something in mind but she wouldn't elaborate.

Xander yawned and got up out of bed stark naked. He didn't used to sleep naked before he became a vampire and he blamed Buffy for the new bad habit but didn't really seem to care that much. Once out of bed, he slipped a dressing gown and walked up the stairs to the ground floor. At the top of the stairs he performed a quick check for heartbeats and he heard his mother in bed while his father spent on the night on the couch again. Seeing that everything was in order, he made his way into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

After he slipped out of his dressing gown he stopped suddenly with a very confused look on his face.

Then he looked down and realized that something was very wrong indeed.

He looked around the room to find out if someone was playing a practical joke on him and he half expected to find a leprechaun hiding in the corner or peeking out from behind the toilet.

Then he looked down again and frowned – "Okay. That's not normal."

O-O-O-O

On the other side of Town but somewhat closer to the middle, Mayor Richard Wilkin the third sat behind his desk with a slightly nutty looking smile plastered on his face.

The Mayor – "I think that's just swell. But I do hope you realize why I've hired you as opposed to any conventional assassin?"

On the other side of his desk sat a rather sexy silvery blue skinned demon girl in a small black silk dress and expensive high heels.

Demon girl, amused – "Not entirely. There are just so many stories circulating around about me. Perhaps if you gave me a hint?"

The demon girl gave the mayor a look up and down, giving him her own hint.

Mayor, ignoring her hint – "I'm after discretion. I want a number of hits and I want them to be as quiet as possible and I don't want them to lead back to me."

Demon girl – "That's guaranteed."

Mayor – "I should hope so because despite your unique attributes, I most certainly have ways to punish you should you fail."

The demon girl pouted – "Aww. And I was just beginning to like you."

Mayor – "Now buck up because I've got a really doozy for you and I need you on top of your game."

The mayor picked up six folders and placed them down on the table in front of the demon assassin.

The demon picked one up and opened it. Inside it were a few pictures of Spike from various angles and a brief run down of his operations in Sunnydale.

Demon girl, reading from the folder – "Spike. He calls himself Spike?"

Mayor – "Indeed he does. That one is a real barrel of monkeys. Now I shouldn't tell you how to do your job but there are a few suggestions at the bottom there. You'll also find all kinds of helpful information on each of the targets. Hobbies, friends, their addresses and social security numbers. It's all in there."

The demon frowned as she read the suggestions then moved to the next folder.

Demon, reading – "Buffy Summers. Oh, I've heard of her. The Slayer that's also a vampire."

Mayor – "Yes. That's her. She's becoming quite popular all of a sudden."

Demon – "Wow. And I get to kill her? Awesome. Hey, I can dispose of her however I want, right?"

Mayor – "Yes. You may."

The demon giggled with glee and moved onto the next folder.

Demon, reading – "Willow Rosenburg. Cute. Ah, she's a witch."

Mayor – "Some of her latest activities could have some very troubling consequences. The last thing we need is for people to start getting ideas about taming the darker side of Sunnydale as she has. It's all in the file so I suggest you read it but might I add that perhaps it's best if you disposed of her first."

The demon sighed but didn't reply to the mayor's suggestion as she moved onto the next folder. Obviously she wanted to do things her own way.

Demon girl – "Angelus."

Mayor – "I take it that you're familiar with him."

Demon girl – "We met once back when he was evil. It's a pity what happened to him. He used to be so fun."

Mayor – "I'll take your word for that. I'm afraid that I've only heard stories."

Demon, opening the next folder – "Xander Harris. One of Buffy's childes. Hmm. I think we've just found the weak link. Teenage boys are so easy."

With a smirk she opened last folder and her smile faded quickly as she found it to be full of photos and briefs on a large number of different people in Sunnydale.

Demon – "I don't understand. It's not that I'm against mass murder but how are you going to cover my fee for this? I'd like to see the money up front if it's all the same to you."

The mayor smiled disarmingly – "No. You've misunderstood me. Those are people who you mostly definitely should not kill."

The demon frowned in confusion – "Not kill? You're telling me who not to kill?"

Mayor – "Well, golly, yes I am. I wouldn't think that would be a problem for you."

Demon, sighing – "It's not."

Mayor – "And let us be clear about this. Should you kill anyone on that list, we'll be talking about that punishment I referred to earlier."

The demon – "I don't get it. You are evil, aren't you?"

Mayor – "It's not your place to understand but I will tell you that in the great scheme of all things evil, those people might be needed. If any of them come to harm then I shall be very upset."

The demon frowned – "Okay. But what about if I torture one or two of them? Would that be okay?"

The mayor – "Of course you can torture them. Just don't kill them. Or maim them too much. We need them in working order."

Demon – "Okay. I guess."

Mayor – "Great. Oh and I know this isn't your area of expertise but there is one thing you can do for me first before you kill those five. You might even like it."

The demon smiled wickedly – "I'm interested already. But tell me, is it naughty?"

The mayor smiled back playfully – "It might be."

O-O-O-O

Around half a day later, Giles was behind the desk in the school library and casually cataloging a small wealth of new books for the student population.

Then Buffy came in through the front doors and Giles jerked up with a yelp of surprise.

Buffy looked at him, a little startled at his yelp.

Giles, with a hand on his back – "Oh, sorry to frighten you. It's just you surprised me and I've got this crick in the middle of my back."

When Buffy didn't reply, Giles noticed that she had blonde hair and was wearing a simple but flattering one piece pink dress.

Giles – "Oh, I'm sorry. Lambronazi, is something wrong? What are you doing here?"

She blinked at him in surprise.

Buffy – "Giles. It's me. Buffy. You couldn't tell?"

Giles – "Oh. Buffy. You dyed your hair back to blonde. It threw me."

Buffy smirked in typical vampire fashion – "Yeah. I was getting tired of everyone treating me like I had a brain. I thought about going red and getting that wild sex vixen look but I didn't want to steal Willow's thunder."

Giles – "So why have you graced us with your presence today?"

Buffy frowned – "I didn't tell you? I've reenrolled in school."

Giles – "Oh. That's nice."

Buffy – "Yup. I'm integrated into human society once more. I feel pretty good about it too. All I had to do is give a cover story for being dead and having a funeral and all that. I told Snyder that my death was faked and I was in witness protection. It was strange. He was really eager to believe me for some reason."

Giles sat down on a chair and Buffy noticed he winced in pain.

Buffy, with concern – "You're still sore from patrol last night?"

Giles seeing Buffy's concern – "I'm okay. I'm just not as young as I used to be."

Buffy – "Stand up and turn around."

Giles frowned at her.

Giles – "Buffy. I'm not interested in a massage."

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "Giles. I'm only thinking about your well being. Now stand up and turn around… I'm not going to give you a massage. Now do it."

Seeing the look of resolve on her face, Giles gave in and did what she said.

Buffy, placing a hand on his spine – "Now tell me where it hurts. Here?"

Giles – "A little higher. Yes, right there."

Buffy – "Ahh. Well, um, kneel a little and I'll fix it for you."

Giles, hesitantly – "How?"

Buffy, sighing – "Giles. Just do it."

Feeling very awkward, Giles knelt a little and Buffy hugged him from the back, folding his arms in front of him as she did.

Buffy – "Relax your arms and breathe out."

Giles, with Buffy's cold breath on his neck – "Buffy. What are you doing?"

Buffy, a little more soothing – "Just relax and breathe out."

Giles wasn't sure this was a good idea but decided that Buffy probably wouldn't hurt him on purpose so he relaxed and breathed out. When he did, Buffy firmly squeezed him and he felt the pain in his back flare up again.

Giles – "Buffy. Are you sure you know what you're doing? Please remember that you've got supernaturally empowered strength and I'm not a vampire."

Buffy, still squeezing – "Just relax. We're almost there."

Then there was a series of painful popping sounds and Giles stopped struggling. The pain quickly turned to a rush of relief flooding through him.

Buffy, still hugging him tightly – "Feel better now?"

Giles, pleasantly surprised – "Why yes."

Buffy – "It's nice, isn't it? It feels like you're floating."

Giles, curiously – "Exactly. Buffy. Where did you learn this?"

Buffy, suggestively – "If you'd like, I could show you a few other things."

Giles hemmed weakly, a little flustered – "No. That won't be necessary. But-but thank you for that. I feel much better now. You can let go now."

Buffy purred into his neck – "Hey, I told you relax."

Then the double doors into the library opened and Wesley walked in to find Giles in a very compromising position with Buffy.

Wesley, hesitantly - "Am I interrupting something?"

Giles – "No. Not at all. Buffy was just showing me, uh -"

Buffy, finishing for Giles – "A cure for back pain. It doesn't work for everything but it did in this case."

Wesley, unsure what to say – "Oh."

Buffy slowly released Giles and he gasped slightly as bones set themselves back into place along his spine.

Buffy, rubbing a hand up and down his spine – "Better?"

Giles, sincerely – "Yes, I dare say that did the trick. Thank you, Buffy. I feel much better."

Buffy – "It's what I'm here for. So Mr Wyndham-Pryce, are you going to school here too?"

Wesley spluttered a few times – "What? No. I'm the assistant librarian."

Buffy blinked at him in disbelieving way. Once her disbelief passed, she giggled.

Buffy – "Wow. And I thought Giles' cover was lame."

Behind Wesley, the doors opened again and Xander walked in with a troubled look on his face. Unlike Buffy, Xander hadn't missed a day of school because of his new vampiric condition. He didn't deny that he felt cheated because of that fact.

Xander, surprised to see Buffy – "Oh, hey Buff."

Buffy, grinning widely – "Hey childe."

Xander, a little uncomfortable – "So the rumor mill is right. You're back at school now."

Buffy – "Back for good."

Wesley – "Good morning, Mr. Harris."

Xander, less cordially – "Yeah. Good morning to you too. Look, I came in to ask how come no one warned me!"

Everyone looked at him oddly, not understanding what he meant.

Xander – "Why didn't anyone warn me about, you know, that vampire thing?"

Giles – "Xander, what vampire thing?"

Xander – "The.. It's like this. I thought vampires stopped growing when they, you know, become vampires. How come no one told me that I'd still be.. growing."

Giles looked Xander up and down with an appraising eye – "You don't look any taller."

Xander – "I'm not talking about my height!"

Giles – "Then what are you talking about?"

Xander growled – "You know, how vampires sort of.. you know when you're going through puberty, how your body changes over time?... ?"

Giles – "I, for one, have no clue what you're talking about. Buffy?"

Buffy just shrugged, just as clueless.

Wesley – "Perhaps if you would explain the situation."

Xander – "Okay. I woke up this morning and I realized that I wasn't quite the same as when I went to bed."

Xander waited for the penny to drop but this only got Xander mystified looks.

Xander – "I went to have a shower but before I got in, when I was naked, I realized that something was kinda different… I'm talking about THAT thing."

Giles, becoming impatient – "Xander, have you ever been hit over the head with a welding mallet?"

Buffy, chuckling – "The way he's saying it, it's like he's talking about his thing."

Xander nodded emphatically and Buffy stopped laughing to figure out if he was lying or not.

Giles – "What in blazes are you talking about?"

Xander – "Little Xander isn't so little anymore."

Once Giles figured out the situation, he groaned and took his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose as he felt a migraine coming on.

Giles – "Xander. Why are you telling us this?"

Xander – "Because I'm wondering why no one thought to warn me about this. You two are watchers so you've should've thought to have warned me. When I woke up, I didn't know what to think?"

Wesley – "Excuse me but this is the first time I've ever heard of anything like this. And I don't know why you're complaining. Many men feel deficient in that department. Many. But not me."

Xander – "Why am I complaining! Because no girl will want to go near me now that I've got THIS between my legs."

Buffy snorted – "Come on. It can't be THAT big."

Xander – "Oh, it is! It is that big."

Buffy, not believing him – "You men. You're always so fixated on the size of your doodle dandies that you don't realize that size doesn't really matter that much. Girls are a lot more flexible than you'd think."

Xander – "I'm not lying. It really is huge."

Giles – "Not that I care but have you been dabbling in magics by any chance?"

Xander – "No. Why? You think someone cursed me?"

Buffy – "Not much of a curse. As Faith would say, go with it. You might like it."

Giles groaned again – "Good advice, Buffy. Now if that's all, can you leave us or at least stop talking about your private parts?"

Xander sighed as he realized that he wasn't going to get any help from the watchers and he left the library with Buffy quick on his heels.

Buffy, eagerly – "So, you hungry?"

Xander frowned at Buffy. She really seemed to enjoy bleeding far too much.

Xander – "Yeah. I guess."

Buffy – "Let's use the maintenance closet then."

Then without warning, Buffy dragged Xander into the closet, not caring who saw them.

Inside, the closet was small and they squeezed together snugly to fit in. Again, Buffy seemed to be enjoying this more than he was.

Buffy, giggling with curiosity – "So how big is it?"

Xander, tiredly – "I didn't exactly measure it."

Buffy, cheekily – "Show me."

Xander looked at her in surprise and she only smiled back innocently.

Xander – "I'm not showing you it."

Buffy – "Xander. It's not like I haven't seen one before."

Xander – "Actually I'm surprised vamps don't brag about this more. I'm still not showing you but trust me, it has way more menace than a game face."

Buffy snorted – "I don't think this is a normal vampire thing. I think it's a Xander thing."

Xander – "What do you mean? You mean other vampires don't get this?"

Buffy, shaking her head – "Not from what I've seen."

Xander - "What? You mean it's just me that this is happened to? Why?"

Buffy shrugged – "All I know is it's not my fault. But I'm guessing magics are involved."

Xander – "Obviously. But what sort of sick, twisted… oh, of course!"

Buffy – "You know who did it?"

Xander – "It's obvious. It was the other me. The one eyed Xander. He probably had this done to himself and by that stupid metaphysical law about time traveling twins, the spell hit me too."

Buffy nodded and sniggered – "The one eyed Xander made your one eyed Xander bigger. Heh."

Xander groaned – "I'm always getting myself in trouble."

Buffy – "It's not all bad. I'm sure some girls would love it."

Xander – "You haven't seen how big it is."

Buffy – "And that's why I asked for you to show me."

Xander – "Can we not talk about this right now?"

Buffy, exposing her neck to him – "Enough talk? Fine. Do what you will with me, big boy."

Xander suppressed the low growl that threatened to rise out of his throat. Buffy knew the effect she had on him but she didn't really understand why he restrained himself so much. She guessed that he was afraid of his demon side or still in denial of it. Either way, it was only a matter of time before he gave in and then she would truly teach him about the darker side of himself.

Buffy – "Remember, it'll have to be a quickie. It's only morning break after all."

Xander huffed a little in frustration as he braced her hard against the wall but Buffy seemed to enjoy it and she gave him a little half growl, half yip which advertised her willingness to mate.

Ignoring her request, he took in a breath and let it out in a low thundering growl. He strained as he bared his teeth and the canines on both sides slowly grew out sharper and longer before Buffy's eyes. Nothing else changed however.

Buffy, watching him with fascination - "You're growing stronger. Good. Now feed."

His hunger begged him to just plunge into her. Instead, he showed restraint and slowly leant down and pulled her shirt to the side to expose her shoulder. There was no need to give her a visible neck wound when an easily covered bite on the shoulder would do.

He heard Buffy gasp a little as his teeth rested against her shoulder and she braced herself against him with one of her legs hooked over his hip. Gently he broke the skin and sank his fangs into her, to which Buffy let out a long, drawn out sigh.

She took in deep breaths, letting them out slowly and her chest billowed up and down against his in a truly distracting way. Buffy preferred if Xander didn't suck too hard when he bit her as it gave her really bad hickeys. To bring her blood to him she would literally pump her blood to him by working her lungs which seemed to help her blood flow.

As their bodies pressed against themselves, Buffy reached down and placed her hand on Xander's pants to feel his size for herself.

Buffy – "God, Xander. You're right. It is huge."

Xander silently grabbed her hands and pinned her against the wall. He couldn't talk because he was still too busy biting her.

Buffy – "Its okay, Xander. I can wait because I know that next time you'll finally give in and give me all of that big, beautiful man-thing. You know that too, don't you? We've already done it twice. A third time won't be so hard to pull off."

Xander's reply was just to bite into her harder and make her hiss with surprise.

Buffy – "That's good, baby. Drink up. I want you big and strong. Ooh, so very big."

Xander rolled his eyes while he fed from her. One of these days he'd have to find a way to get back at her for torturing him like this.

O-O-O-O

Elsewhere in the school, in the mess hall, Tara was sitting down and talking quietly with Oz who she had met earlier at a Scooby meeting.

Willow came in and found the two quiet ones together and smiled at the cute scene. Then she frowned, realizing that Tara should most definitely not look cute with her boyfriend.

With surprise on her side, she strode over to the pair and sat down on Oz's lap.

Oz, suitably surprised – "Oh! Willow. You surprised me."

Willow, grinning – "That's the effect I was going for. So, you and Tara are getting along, huh?"

Oz – "More or less."

Willow, giving Tara fake evil-eyes – "Should I be worried?"

Tara drew into herself while Oz just smirked.

Oz – "We're taking it slow for the moment. But I like her and she seems to like me. By the way we feel it's obvious that we're going to talk over cafeteria food some time in the future. I know this is a lot to push on you but that's just the way it is."

Willow – "So she's nice?"

Oz, nodding – "Nice."

Willow – "That's good. As long as she's just nice."

Oz – "Only nice so far."

Behind Oz, Principal Snyder hemmed loudly.

Principal – "Miss Rosenburg. Do you really think such behavior sets a good example for new students?"

Willow blinked at the principal, oblivious to what he meant then realized his message and scooted off Oz's lap onto another seat.

Principal – "There was a matter I wished to talk to you about, Miss Rosenburg. It regards the reenrollment of your one time friend, one Buffy Summers."

Willow – "Buffy? I think I saw her going to the library. You know her. She's so academic and studious."

Snyder ignored Willow's statement and kept talking – "That girl is trouble. I would like to remind you about the fiasco you were caught up in last year where you were hospitalized. You have a lot of potential and it saddens me to see it wasted on the likes of that Summers girl. Instead, why don't you stay out of trouble and spend more time with intelligent, respectful girls like Ms Grafton here. Then maybe your life won't be a total loss."

Willow, a little confused at the unfamiliar name – "Uh, okay."

With that, Snyder turned tail and left, leaving the three teenagers alone once more.

Oz turned to watch the principal leave and he sniffed in the little man's direction.

Oz - "You know, I'm not entirely sure that man is human."

Willow, to Tara - "Your last name is Grafton?"

Tara – "It was the name the Watchers gave me when they gave me a new identity. They chose it at random."

Willow – "Tara Grafton. That sounds okay."

Oz nodded in agreement – "It sounds okay."

Willow – "But why would the Watchers give need to give you a new identity?"

Tara floundered a little at that question, totally unsure where to start.

Willow, a little guiltily – "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. Sorry. I was prying."

Tara sort of half smiled anxiously, trying to set their fears aside.

Tara – "No, it's okay. I-I-I.."

Tara stopped talking to take in a deep breath and wondered why she was stuttering again. She hadn't stuttered so badly in months. She would've thought that between all the vampire snuggling she'd gotten recently, her shyness would've totally evaporated but now it was right back in force.

Tara, forcing the words out – "Xander saved me from my family and I don't want them to find me again."

After that was said, Tara stared at the table with disbelief that she had actually said that out loud. Emotional wounds she had forgotten about opened up again and she couldn't stop her eyes from misting over. The only person she had ever actually talked to about this was Faith. The older Xander seemed to already know about her situation already and the other inhabitants of the Summers household seemed content to give her privacy about her past. She couldn't really understand why she just blurted out part of her private life to two almost complete strangers like that.

Willow and Oz shared a look of quiet shock between themselves. Although they didn't know the details, neither of the couple could understand how anyone could even consider abusing Tara. Everything about Tara, from her shyness to that sweet little half smile of hers, asked you to shield her from abuse, not give it to her.

Willow reached across the table and placed her hand over Tara's.

Willow – "Do you want to talk about it?"

Tara – "No. Thank you but no."

Willow, in that cutely neurotic way of hers – "Well, if you do, we'll be here. Right, Oz? We'll be here?"

Oz nodded – "I'll be here. She'll be here. We'll be here."

Tara smiled slightly and looked down at her bright orange lunch box.

Willow – "Do you want to talk about something else? Like, what's it called? Chit chat?"

Tara thought about the question then nodded – "Okay. Sure."

Willow looked to Oz, as if asking for a new topic but Oz just gave her a blank look back.

Willow – "Sooo.. what have you got for lunch?"

Tara looked down at her lunch box again and smiled genuinely this time – "Pasta salad sandwiches."

Willow thought about this and found the concept a little ridiculous while Oz didn't seem to react at all.

Willow – "Pardon me?"

Tara – "Pasta salad sandwiches. Dawn made them for me. She's been so sweet to me since I've been here and I didn't want to say no to her so I took them and.. here I am with my pasta salad sandwiches."

Willow frowned – "Why would she make sandwiches like that? I mean, that doesn't work, does it?"

Tara – "I, um.. don't tell her this but I think since she was turned, her taste buds have gone a bit haywire. She eats and drinks some really strange things. Like Buffy's citrus scented shampoo went missing one day and it turned out that Dawn drank it. She gets weird cravings sometimes."

Willow, finding it amusing – "Weird cravings? Ah, she's not pregnant, is she?"

Tara – "No. Of course not. She's never even.. you know."

Willow, finding this intriguing – "She hasn't? But she's a.. you know."

Tara frowned – "A what?"

Willow – "She's a vampire. They're.. you know."

Tara shook her head, not knowing.

Willow, as if it was obvious – "They're a vampire."

Willow frowned when Tara didn't get her point so she explained some more.

Willow, in babble mode – "Well, where to start? How about the fact that vampires are practically metaphors for sexual predation? They're overflowing with lust, not only for blood but normal everyday lust and the magnitude of those lusts, oh, I could tell you about some of the stories I've read. Everything they do, their acts of violence, their blood letting both to and fro, their social interactions, it all feeds that lust. They're basically walking, talking, biting libidos. Why do you think they keep smirking in that knowing, sexy manner? It's because they're undressing us with their eyes. The truth is they attract us as much as they terrify us and that just makes them that much more attractive."

Willow realized that she had just babbled too much again by the looks Oz and Tara were giving her.

Willow – "Oh, hey look, Cordelia! Hi, Cordy!"

Willow waved awkwardly to Cordelia as she walked by, followed by the Cordettes.

Harmony, waving back cheerfully – "Hey dork girl. What's up? Oh, have you just found a new friend? I don't know, Willow. She looks a bit sappy, even for you."

Cordelia sighed deeply. She felt that she was getting too old for high school politics.

Cordelia, sounding slightly tired – "Harmony, you're just belittling yourself by insulting them. Not only that but they can't get any lower class than they already are. They'll never know what fashion really is and what's sadder than that?"

Harmony frowned and struggled to understand whether Cordelia was insulting her or the Scoobies. Instead, she smiled superficially and nodded in agreement.

Harmony – "You're right. They're not worth the time it takes me to put them down."

With that said, Harmony turned away and the Cordettes gave them no more notice as they walked to their reserved table.

Cordelia had gone back to her Cordelia like ways once Xander had been turned. Since she wouldn't be spending any more social time with Xander, she didn't feel the need to spend any more time with his friends. Despite this, Cordelia still attended Scooby meetings and even helped out on patrol occasionally.

There were a few times when Willow thought Cordelia was going to explode at the newly vamped Xander but instead, she just sort of sagged each time and held back. Xander's death had snuffed out the fire in Cordelia's heart and it didn't look like it was going to be rekindled any time soon.

Even more distraction came to the table in the form of Buffy and Xander. Xander looked a little humiliated while Buffy looked drained but was smiling in a satisfied way.

Willow – "Hey Buffy, Xander."

Xander, quietly – "Hey."

Buffy, cheerfully – "Hey Willow. Whatcha talking about?"

Buffy and Xander sat down at the table while Tara got a pasta salad sandwich out of her lunchbox to eat. Xander adjusted his pants a little to get comfortable while Buffy smirked his way.

Willow – "Uh, we were talking about Dawn, about how she drank some of your shampoo."

Buffy chuckled – "Yeah. I really liked that shampoo too. I tell ya, that girl needs a hobby or something to keep herself busy. Idle hands and all that."

Willow – "I'm surprised you didn't have her come back to school. Uh, actually, I don't remember her coming to school here. Was she home schooled?"

Buffy lost her chirpy attitude as she tried to recall Dawn's details.

Buffy – "No, her family were just moving to Sunnydale when they were caught by vampires."

Willow – "Oh, so she's got family in town? That must be awkward. I guess that's why she stays in doors all the time. She doesn't want to be spotted."

Buffy, sighed – "No. Her entire family were caught by vampires and she was the only one that was turned. Umm.. so has anything happened school-wise since I was gone?"

Oz, looking in Xander's direction – "Not really. Uh, did you just feed Xander?"

Xander looked down at his shirt for blood stains and then put his hand up to his nose and breathed on it to smell his own breath.

Xander – "Oh, blood breath. Sorry."

He pulled out a miniature can of mint flavored breathe freshener and sprayed it into his mouth a few times. Then he tested his breath again and found it be sufficiently bloodless.

Willow, with concern – "You did get some more blood, didn't you, Buffy? Because I know that your bloodlust can come up on you suddenly."

Buffy chuckled a little and shook her head – "Relax Willow. Since the time warp, I've gotten way more control over my thirst. I haven't even felt the urge to drink anyone's blood for centuries. Besides, Xander doesn't drink much. He's such a considerate childe."

To show her appreciation, Buffy butted her head into Xander's shoulder and purred into his armpit.

Xander, embarrassed – "Buffy. People could see."

Buffy, pouting playfully – "So? Let them."

Willow hemmed, catching Buffy's attention – "So everything is good between you two? No wanting-to-bite-people-in-the-neck problems?"

Xander and Buffy both shook their heads.

Buffy – "Nope. Xander's been the perfect gentleman. He's doing so well we're going to take him on patrol tonight. The same with Lambronazi."

Tara, putting her soggy sandwich down – "Lambie? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Buffy – "We've practicing together for a while and I think some real action will be good for her. I'm sure her Slayer half will appreciate it."

Tara – "But Lambie wouldn't hurt a fly."

Buffy smirked, intimidating Tara – "She might be gentle with you but she's not weak. I'm not sure if any of you understand but for a Slayer to get beaten by a vampire, it's the worst thing imaginable. She was really ashamed that she couldn't beat Drusilla. In a way, this patrol is more for her than it is for the greater good. Oh and by the way, I wanted to ask Willow and Oz, if you'd mind watching Dawn tonight. I wouldn't ask but Joyce is away at an auction in LA for the night.""

Tara – "I'm staying home tonight. I can take care of her."

Buffy, a little uncomfortably – "I know, Tara. It's just, I worry about her. I know it's silly but this nightmare keeps running through my head where a horde of grotty munchkins kidnap Dawn. I don't know where it comes from and I know how insane it is but if I don't know that she's safe then the same nightmare keeps running through my head and let me tell you, it's no good for my concentration. Umm, so it would mean a lot if there were more people keeping watch over her than just you. No offense Tara, it's just I don't know how much use you are in fight."

Tara, wincing – "Not that much I'm afraid."

Willow – "I guess I can spend the night at your place but I think Oz has a thing."

Oz – "Biannual band practice. The band strums a few strings, talks about our artistic direction and then Devon gets drunk and we videotape him. I know it doesn't sound it but it's important I go."

Buffy, to Willow – "On a plus side, you and Tara can talk magic. That'd be good, wouldn't it?"

Willow nodded cheerfully as Tara looked pensive. Willow noticed Tara turning inward and frowned. There was obviously something troubling the young girl and Willow resolutely decided that it was time someone got to the bottom of it. Tonight, she would be mounting an expedition into the no-man's land called Tara.

O-O-O-O

Author's note – Okay, no action, all talk. I get it. I'm just trying to get back my groove here. Still, it'd be good to know how bad it was. Was it pull out your eyeball bad or just paint your room magenta bad?

Continued in next chapter.


	38. 13b Femme fatalities

Author note – Be warned. This entire chapter is only one continuous scene which pretty much contains only talking. I just thought I would warn you in case you were expecting more.

O-O-O-O

Several hours later and Dawn was waiting anxiously at home while Lambronazi was on the floor, idly coloring in a color-in book with crayons. Eventually, the door opened and in walked Faith and Buffy, followed by Tara, Willow and Xander.

Buffy bounded up the stairs, calling back – "I'll back be down in a minute."

Seeing Tara, Lamb got off the ground and immediately went to hug the voluptuous blonde.

Dawn, amused – "Someone missed you, Tara. Hey, Willow, Xander."

Willow gave an awkward half wave hello while Xander slouched comfortably in the threshold to the house.

Xander, sending a warm smile Dawn's way – "Hey Dawn."

Since his turning incident, Xander had grown a new appreciation for Dawn and despite the objects from the little demon in his pants, felt a familial bond with the quirky, chirpy brunette. The fact that she also had a crush on him the size of Kansas was a new novelty for Xander that he found himself enjoying.

Xander – "So how's things? Hope Buffy's been treating you okay."

Dawn – "Yeah. I guess. You know how she is."

Xander smirked - "Oh. I understand. I totally understand. I understand so much you could say that I overstand."

Seeing that they had visitors, Faith came bounding down the stairs in a silky cleavage inducing top encased in a modest black denim jacket and matching jeans. She looked eager and ready for action, any sort of action.

Faith – "Hey X. Heard we're taking you for a test drive tonight."

Xander stopped leaning against the house comfortably and tried to fake comfortable with a shrug. Something about Faith always put him on edge.

Xander – "I finally got the big tick on my warrant of fitness."

Faith grinned and walked a little closer to Xander and sniffed at him.

Faith – "So you're not the only kiddie not putting out for B. Gotta tell ya, if you were mine, I wouldn't put it up with it."

Dawn – "Yeah, well, luckily we're not yours."

Faith smirked – "You could be one day. I've got a leather jacket which Buffy might trade you for."

Dawn couldn't help but laugh – "Oh please. The day I swap sires with you is the day hell freezes over. Buffy's bad enough but you, you're insane."

Faith giggled and grabbed Dawn wrist and pulled her into a sleeper hold.

Willow, concerned – "Uh, Faith. What are you doing?"

Faith – "Just playing with her. Relax."

Dawn, with a raspy and annoyed voice – "Faith. Let me go."

Faith – "Nuh uh. Haven't finished torturing you yet."

Faith started lifting up Dawn's shirt and before Dawn could object, Faith bent down and started blowing raspberries on her stomach. Dawn instantly started crying out with raucous laughter.

Seeing that Faith's meant no lasting harm, the others relaxed and enjoyed the show.

In an uncharacteristically fast time, Buffy had finished changing and appeared at the top of the stairs and was ready to find the house under attack. Instead, she found Faith molesting Dawn in perhaps the funny way possible.

As Buffy walked down the stairs, Dawn fell over sideways, laughing her head off - "Hey! No fair."

Buffy, playing disapproving – "Faith, what did I tell you about Dawn?"

Faith, smirking – "She asked for it. You should keep a tighter rein on your kids, B. This one keeps stealing my bunk buddy for her own personal pleasure pillow."

Faith's innuendo got the better of Buffy and she broke into a face splitting grin.

Buffy – "So are we all ready to go? Lamb?"

Lamb appeared next to Buffy and everyone realized that the two twins were both wearing a white tee and blue jeans.

Buffy - "Ooh, this is awkward."

Xander – "Oh, I don't know. I think it's…"

Faith – "Kinda creepy?"

Xander – "Actually, yeah. But kind of cute too."

Buffy looked Lamb up and down and frowned – "I really have no ass at all, do I?"

Faith, smirking – "Buffy. You get more ass than most people can handle and now you're complaining that you get none at all?"

Buffy grinned wickedly but locked her emotions down as there were humans present.

Buffy, to Dawn – "Dawn, I'm going to leave you with Tara and Willow tonight. Do you think you'll be okay?"

Dawn sighed – "Buffy. Yes! I'll be okay. I spent months on the street so I think I can handle one night without constant adult supervision."

Buffy nodded reluctantly – "Yeah, I guess. Okay, we're cool. Let's go."

Xander - "Yes. Let us ninja in the night."

The active party left through the front door while Willow, Tara and Dawn waved goodbye from inside.

Buffy, calling back as the front door closed – "And Dawn, you'd better be good for Willow or you're gonna get it!"

In reply, Dawn smooched one of the front windows then blew with her mouth to make a blowfish out of her face and got a laugh out of Tara and Willow.

Dawn chuckled a little too as she wiped her lip gloss off the window.

Dawn – "So what should we do tonight? Oh, I guess you two have homework? I could help you with it."

Willow couldn't help but smile at the thought of needing help with her homework. It was almost too ridiculous.

Willow – "No, that's fine. We don't have any tonight, I don't think. Tara?"

Tara shook her head as she cleaned up after Lamb. The blonde took a moment to look at Lamb's crayon work and frowned.

Tara, showing Dawn the color-in picture – "She still isn't coloring between the lines."

Dawn shrugged helplessly – "So no homework, huh? And we've got the house all to ourselves all night. There's gotta be something we can do. Ooh! How about dress up?"

Willow – "Dress up? Dress up with what?"

Dawn – "You know how the other Xander gave Tara all those kinky clothes? Me and Tara play dress up with them all the time. Buffy's got some great stuff too. Like she's got this one stretchy synthetic number which is too big for us but I think it would look fantastic on you. It just screams vampire queen of the underworld."

Willow, not so enthused – "Uh, no, that's fine. Let's maybe do that some other day."

Dawn – "Are you sure? Because it's really fun and Tara has some great clothes."

Willow – "No, that's fine. We can do something else."

Dawn slumped down in the couch and thought a little – "Well, there's this movie on TV later on called wild things. I've never seen it before but Faith said that I'd really like it so we could snuggle up on the couch together and watch it later."

Willow backed up a little and coughed nervously a little – "Uh, maybe. But what I really wanted to talk to you about was Buffy."

Tara looked concerned at Willow's serious tone while Dawn groaned.

Dawn, flippantly – "What about her?"

Willow – "Have either of you noticed anything, oh, um, different about her recently?"

Dawn – "No. Not really. Though truthfully, I think I liked her better when she chained to the wall and I fed her on rats."

Tara, shocked at Dawn - "Dawn, that's cruel."

Dawn – "Nah, rats don't really taste that bad."

Willow – "I thought you loved her or something."

Dawn – "Well, I do. Sort of. It's just recently she's really been smothering me, only letting me out of the house with an honor guard, not letting me go to the bronze or talk to boys or you know, have a life. You know what my life is like? It's like that show about the girl with two dads but instead I've got two moms. Joyce and Buffy."

Willow – "One with his feet on the ground and one with his head in the clouds. Buffy's the one with her head in the clouds, isn't she?"

Dawn shook her head – "You obviously don't know her. I've got this theory about her. See, I reckon she's eternally bitchy because she was turned during her period and she's been stuck with PMS ever since."

Willow was about to say that was a stupid theory until she thought about it and found that it was strangely intriguing.

Tara – "Dawn, she just wants to take care of you."

Dawn – "Yeah but see, I don't need taking care of. I'm a vampire. I'm a tough, uh, you know, a tough thing. Vampires are tough, right?"

Willow sighed and admitted something dreadful – "I think Buffy came back different."

Tara and Dawn looked at Willow, neither having any clue what she was talking about.

Willow – "I mean, I think that something happened to Buffy when she swapped bodies with Lambronazi."

Dawn – "Like what? I mean, besides sleeping the centuries away with the help of magic potions?"

Willow – "Well, for one, I don't think I've seen her drink any blood since she's come back."

Tara – "Of course she drinks blood. She's a vampire. They have to drink blood. Don't they?"

Willow – "But she used to drink it all the time and in really large quantities."

Tara – "Maybe she's just embarrassed about it so she does it in private."

Dawn – "Nah. I just don't think she drinks as much. I remember how much she used to drink and wow, she made Faith look like a pig. But nowadays, she just doesn't seem to need as much."

Willow – "And she's told us that people don't make her hungry anymore."

Tara – "So? Isn't this all good?"

Willow – "Well, um, normally, yes but it could mean something else. Remember in Lamb's prophecies about the process that would take place when they swap bodies? It said that all the chaff would be taken and thrown back into the timeline and all the good stuff would be formed into Buffy's body. Maybe Lamb has all of Buffy's good qualities while Buffy got all the bad."

Tara – "You think she could be evil?"

Willow – "Well, I'm not sure but not everything is adding up. For one, vampires only lose their bloodlust when they get REALLY old. I'm talking ancient. I think maybe she didn't put herself into suspended animation to sleep through the centuries at all. I think she really lived through them. But this means that her vampire half would be way stronger than her slayer half and so her slayer half probably doesn't have any sway over her decision making process anymore."

Dawn – "Umm, just so we're all clear, you know I'm a vampire, right?"

Willow – "Yes, I know you're a vampire."

Dawn – "And I'm not really that evil."

Willow – "Yes but you weren't turned properly. You've got about a third of the normal necromantic energies a vampire normally has. The watchers council can't even figure out how you're staying alive."

Dawn smiled a silly smile – "Really? So I'm like mysterious? Cool."

Willow – "Yes, you're cool. But back to Buffy. She's been feeding Xander daily. If she is on the dark side then by feeding him, she's only bringing him over to it. And if she's feeding him so much of her own blood, she needs to be replacing it, doesn't she?"

Tara – "That would make sense."

Willow – "But she isn't. I checked with Giles. The only vampire who drinks the blood from the school fridge is Faith and occasionally Spike. I broke into her locker and I couldn't find her thermos for blood and it's not in her school bag either. I checked that too. And did you notice that when she came home, she just changed and left without taking any of the blood from the fridge? So where is she getting her blood from?"

Tara – "You think she's feeding on people?"

Willow – "I don't want to think that but considering the evidence, what am I supposed to believe?"

Dawn, hesitantly – "If she was evil, hypothetically, we wouldn't have to kill her, would we? We could spell her like we did with Spike so she has to do everything we say."

Tara frowned sternly – "Okay Dawn. What do you know?"

Dawn – "I didn't say I know anything."

Tara – "Yes. You know something."

Willow nodded – "You've got knowing face."

Dawn hesitated and almost looked like she was about to turn tail and run until Tara reached over and pulled Dawn into a hug. Willow was astounded by the instant change Tara had over Dawn by that simple gesture. With the slightest growl, Dawn melted and slipped her hands around Tara. For a split second, Dawn's eyes met Tara's but it was the vampire who backed down first and Dawn lowered her head to rest on Tara's shoulder.

Willow had never heard of a vampire acting like that without some sort of magical influence and couldn't help but compare Tara to some sort of lion tamer.

Tara, gently – "Sweetie, if you know something you should tell us so we can help Buffy."

Dawn – "It might be nothing but… sometimes Buffy would come home in the middle of the night and she would be.. warm."

Willow – "Warm? What's so odd about – Oh!"

Tara, confused – "Oh what?"

Willow – "Vampires are only warm after they've drank from someone."

Dawn – "Or microwaved their blood. Or they've sunbathing, which would be kinda unlikely in the middle of the night."

Willow – "So she has been hunting."

Dawn – "But I don't know if she really was. Maybe she just liked to have hot baths in the middle of the night. And she never smells of blood. I would've smelt it on her breath."

Willow – "Vampire's don't breathe."

Dawn – "We do when we talk. M-maybe she's on some new fad diet we haven't heard about."

Willow - "She's a vampire. They drink blood. It doesn't give a lot of leeway for fad diets."

Dawn – "Well, I eat a lot of stuff that isn't blood and I can live off it for quite while. Once I spent a month living off fitness bars and just in case you were wondering, I never want to do that again."

Willow – "But you're a special case. We have to consider the possibility that Buffy's gone evil."

Dawn – "Then why hasn't she killed you yet then? If she was evil then she'd kill you because you're human. Evil vampires kill humans."

Willow – "Well, um, I don't know. Maybe she wants to play with our minds or maybe she's after some bigger prize like the watchers council or she wants to rule Sunnydale."

Tara – "That sounds a little far fetched."

Willow – "Not if you considered who turned her. Angelus was one of the most sadistic vampires in history. What made him even worse was the amount of patience he would display in tormenting his targets. Also, there's something else that hasn't added up about Buffy."

Dawn, whining – "There's more?"

Willow – "And if I'm right then we're in serious trouble. It concerns Buffy's return from Acathla's hell dimension. How did they return? More importantly, why did they return? Time in hell dimensions moves thousands of times faster than in our own so a month in our time could have been a hundred years of pain and torture for them. Also, what if I didn't perform Angel's resoulment spell properly? Buffy was supposed to die in the process but she never did."

Tara – "But the watchers council said Angel had his soul back."

Willow – "There are ways to fool the council's tests and if Angel was evil and in a hell dimension for a few hundred years then he would have had the time to find discover such ways."

Dawn – "Magic ways?"

Willow – "Yes, magic ways."

Dawn – "Not that I'm buying all this but if Buffy was evil then would the fact that her room is full of magic stuff be a bad thing?"

Willow – "Her room is full of magic stuff?"

Tara – "Are you sure Dawn? I didn't notice any."

Dawn – "She hides it under the bed with her weapons and told me to keep myself and Lambie out of it."

Willow groaned. She really wanted to be wrong about Buffy this time.

Willow – "Can you show us?"

Dawn nodded and slowly unattached herself from Tara, not wanting to let the warm body go. She led them the stairs and Dawn let them into Buffy's room. The room looked almost exactly the same as when Buffy was human except there was some dirty laundry on the floor.

Dawn, cleaning up the laundry – "Whoops. Who left that there? Not me."

Willow – "Dawn. The magic stuff?"

Dawn - "Oh right. Lemme just pull it out."

Dawn knelt down, reached under the bed and pulled out a heavy chest.

Tara, fidgeting – "I don't think we should be doing this."

Dawn – "Relax, Tara. Buffy won't know."

Tara – "So? We'll know."

Willow – "Tara. We're just checking up on her. If she's evil then yes, we should be doing this. If she's not then we'll just put everything back the way it came and it'll be fine."

Dawn – "Don't think of it like you're searching her room without permission. Think of it like you're searching my room with my permission."

Willow – "You share rooms with Buffy?"

Dawn – "Yeah. You didn't know? How did you think we all fit in this tiny house? I share a room with Buffy and Lambie while Tara shares one with Faith."

Willow, to Tara – "You share a room with Faith!"

Tara – "So?"

Willow – "But how does this work? There's three of you but only one bed in this room."

Dawn – "We share."

Willow, to Tara – "And you share a bed with Faith?"

Tara – "She mostly sleeps during the day."

Dawn – "And Slayers don't sleep that much. I love Lambie but she sure runs me ragged sometimes."

Dawn flipped open the chest and inside were a bunch of leather whips, chains, bondage gear and other fun things.

Dawn, giggling – "Oops, wrong chest."

Willow on the other hand was shocked – "Oh my god. I never knew Buffy was into that stuff. I know she's a vampire but still! To actually see this is a shock."

Dawn giggled again and Willow asked – "Does Buffy use this stuff on you?"

Dawn blinked at Willow – "Huh? Whoa. Hold on. I-I don't have sex with Buffy. Not even in a joking way. Is that what everyone thinks?"

Willow – "Uh, no. I just thought.."

Dawn – "You just thought what?"

Willow – "It's just that a lot of vampires have sex with their sires. The turning process is supposed to be very sexual and intense and, uh, the sensations from it tend to, um, translate into a sexual relationship. So I just guessed –"

Dawn – "I'm not!"

Willow nodded – "Oh, okay."

Dawn – "And you shouldn't just presume things like that."

Willow – "I'm sorry."

Dawn – "And so you should be."

Willow looked in the chest again while Tara looked like she wanted to ask Dawn something.

Dawn, noticing Tara's indecision – "Yes Tara?"

Tara – "I-I wanted to know. When you were turned, was it very.."

Dawn – "Sexual and intense? Umm, I don't think so. Intense, maybe. But having my family killed in front of my eyes and then getting drowned in blood wasn't a fun way to go. I wouldn't recommend it."

Willow – "I've noticed Buffy doesn't like talking about that."

Dawn – "I don't blame her. She was the one who did the killing part… Oh. She didn't tell you that part?"

Willow and Tara both shook their heads grimly.

Tara – "She killed your family?"

Dawn, with a strange distant look – "Well, she drank my sister. Then Angel had her rape my parents then kill them too. I thought they were going to do the same to me but lucky for me, they only killed me. I was in so much emotional pain but when I try to remember it, it's as if it never existed. I remember being trapped between Angel and Buffy but instead of feeling suffocated, I only remember the strangest sense of belonging."

Dawn snapped out of her trance and hemmed a little, as if to clear her throat.

Dawn, explaining – "I've been trying to figure out why Buffy holds so much power over me and I've come to the conclusion that when I was turned, my memories were forcibly altered. I can hardly remember my parents. It's like the place in my head where they used to be is now full of Buffy and Angel. If they didn't treat me so unlike my real parents did then I probably wouldn't have even noticed."

Willow – "Hey, you should talk to Wesley about this. He did his doctorate thesis on the various different theories behind vampire's personality traits. He let me read it and in it, he put forward the idea that in a vampire's mind, their Sire takes the form of a certain Jungian archetype such as the devil or the grim reaper or an animal or a lover. In Dawn's case, it seems like Buffy and Angel literally replaced her family with their own."

Dawn, confused – "Uh, huh?"

Tara – "Well, you DO call Spike uncle."

Dawn – "Well, yeah because calling him brother would just be wrong. He's so hot."

Tara – "And liking a real uncle like that wouldn't be wrong?"

Dawn sniggered – "Come on, Tara. It's kinda funny. Spike's so crude that I can totally imagine him as a dirty uncle who tries to get it on with his niece."

Willow – "So you and Spike?.."

Dawn sighed – "No. If only. I thought he liked me but any chance I had with him is gone now that I've killed that crazy Drusilla."

Willow looked back at the chest again and shook her head in disbelief.

Dawn, looking in the chest – "I asked Buffy about it that stuff and she said that she doesn't get to use it much. She actually seemed pretty sad about that fact… hey, what's thing do?"

Dawn pulled out a bright red ball held between two leather straps.

Willow reddened a little - "It's a ball gag."

Dawn - "A ball gag?"

Willow, taking the gag off Dawn – "Here. I'll show you. Tara?"

Tara – "What?"

Willow – "Would you mind if I… just to show Dawn."

Tara gulped but nodded.

Tara – "Okay, I guess."

Willow – "Just hold your hair up and open wide."

Tara bunched her hair up and Willow moved behind her as if to put on a necklace. Instead, she placed the ball gag in Tara's mouth and tightened it in place.

Dawn looked at Tara with the ball gag in her mouth. She looked kinda cute like that in a vulnerable sort of way but Dawn didn't get the idea behind it.

Dawn – "So it's to shut people up? If that's what it's for then Buffy really should use it on Faith.. or herself."

Willow – "That's not really what it's for. You see, it's no use just by itself because then they can just pull it off. But if you hold their hands behind their back like this then they can't take it off."

Tara gave out a confused murmur as Willow held her hands behind her back.

Dawn frowned – "Okay. Now I'm really confused. It's for torturing people?"

Willow, still holding Tara's hands – "No. Not torture so much. It's for humiliation. Some people like being tied up and humiliated like this."

By the tasty of pink Tara was turning, Dawn guessed that some people did but she thought it would've been more fun to tie someone up rather than be tied up. Tara spotted Dawn watching her hungrily and her heartbeat started to race. Her breathing caught up and before she knew it, she was breathing in and out hard through her nose and her bosoms heaved for Dawn's viewing pleasure. Despite the humiliation, she found the whole thing stimulating on a whole new level.

Dawn, smirking at Willow – "You seem to know a lot about this."

Willow – "Ah, I um, I read a lot."

Tara made a few murmurings and Willow let her hands go.

Willow – "Sorry, Tara. I was had too much fun at your expense. Hold your hair up again and I'll take it off."

Tara held her hair up again and waited patiently as Willow slowly took the ball gag out. As soon of the gag was off a line of drool spilled out from her lips and Tara was quick to wipe it off her chin.

Tara, still breathing hard – "It's really hard to breathe with that thing on."

As Tara caught her breath back, Dawn snuggled next to her and Tara didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

Dawn – "Damn Tara. You looked so tasty with that thing on. Like a pig with an apple in its mouth."

Tara, not amused – "A pig?"

Dawn realized that she had just committed a faux pas of giant proportions so she tried to backpedal a little.

Dawn – "That's not what I meant. I meant that you looked so delicious. I'd never bite you but I'm seriously thinking about licking you."

Tara – "No. No biting and no licking. Because licking could lead to nibbling which could lead to biting. So no licking."

Dawn, decoupling from Tara – "You're right. No licking. It's like Faith says. If you don't start then you don't need to stop. I'll just.. I'll just eat something."

Dawn pulled open a drawer in Buffy's vanity and pulled out a chocolate bar she had hidden there earlier. She tore off the wrapper and engulfed it in one piece, chewing it with her powerful vampire jaws. As soon as she did, relief flooded through her like a junky that had just gotten their latest fix.

Willow – "Umm, are you sure you shouldn't drink some blood instead?"

Dawn, still with her mouth full – "Nah. Chocolate's just as good for me."

Willow, not quite buying that – "Oh-kay. How about we move along to Buffy's magic stuff now?"

Dawn obeyed and pulled out another chest from under the bed. She half opened it and looked inside, surprised at what she saw.

Dawn – "Oh weird! It's like some sort of weird shrine for Willow."

Willow, shocked – "What!"

Dawn, flipping the lid open – "Just joking! Hah!"

Inside the chest were a mass of what could only be magic books and magical ingredients.

The two witches knelt and started pulling out some of the books.

Tara – "I don't recognize any of this stuff. Is it black magic?"

Willow – "They look like it although we haven't found a book bound in human skin yet. Uh, what's this doing here?"

Dawn, having no clue at all – "What is it?"

Willow – "The Babylon workings. And what's this? The unicorn's red trail? My god. I can't believe Buffy would have this."

Dawn – "What? Is it dark magic?"

Willow - "Not per se. But it's not exactly good magic."

Tara opened one of the books and gasped at what she saw. Dawn looked over her shoulder to see what Tara saw and she gasped too. Slowly, they tilted their heads in fascination.

Dawn – "What IS that? Demon porn?"

Willow – "I-uh-I believe that Buffy's been dabbling in sex magic. And by the amount of books here, I'd say a fricken lot!"

Dawn picked up her own book and looked through it.

Dawn, tilting her head again – "Oh wow. This-this would.. I should remember this for if I ever get a boyfriend. Willow, check this out."

Dawn spun the book around so Willow could see the diagram and the brunette giggled deviously. Willow just frowned and wondered what was so naughty about the inscribed diagram. Maybe Willow was just really jaded or maybe Dawn really was just sexually undereducated for a vampire.

Or alternatively, maybe Dawn was Amish when she was alive.

Tara – "Are you sure this isn't dark magic?

Willow – "Yes. I would know. I've been taught how to recognize dark magic and this stuff isn't it. Not quite it. It's sex magic."

Dawn, looking through the chest for another book – "And what exactly is sex magic?"

Willow – "It's like magic but with sex involved."

Dawn – "So like, a sex magic spell would be what? Summoning a leprechaun to have sex with you?"

Willow frowned – "Why on earth would you.. ? .. No. Definitely not. It's like this. There's different types of magic. Sympathetic magic, green magic, dark magic, sex magic, celestial magic, earth magic and countless others. Some are nicer than others. You can tell what type of magic you're using by what you need to do to perform the spell. For instance, if you killed a virgin on a sacrificial altar to power your house for a year then that would be black magic. But if you planted a specific pattern of herbs and shrubs around your house to power it for a year then that would be, um, green magic I guess."

Tara – "That sounds more like feng shui."

Willow – "You're right. It would be feng shui magic."

Dawn – "You can supply electricity to your house with feng shui?"

Willow – "It's just an example."

Dawn – "Oh, okay, so with sex magic you have sex and stuff happens?"

Willow nodded.

Dawn – "Like what sort of stuff."

Tara, still reading a book – "It seems to depend on the spell and precisely how you have sex… and with what you have sex with. Goddess, I didn't know magic like this existed. Mom never told me about it."

Willow snorted – "Can you imagine her explaining it to you?"

Tara shook her head – "No, that would've been scary. In fact, it's kind of scary right now."

Willow – "Quite a few spells in sex magic have preparatory spells that you need to perform before you can do the main spells. It's like building a pyramid. To do one spell, you need to perform other spells to work as a base for that main spell. That's one of the big disadvantages in sex magics. Few humans can, you know, physically perform at the pace needed for more than five spells in a row. Because of that, there aren't a lot of master practitioners. Few people have both the mental and physical stamina needed for the more lengthy incantations. But since Buffy's a vampire AND a slayer, I guess the only problem would be the mental side of things."

Dawn, to Tara – "Is it just me or does she seem to know a lot about this stuff?"

Willow – "Like I said, I read a lot. A lot! and not just about this stuff."

Tara – "Are you sure this isn't dark magic?"

Willow – "Well, it's not if it's between two or, uh, however many consensual adults and no one gets hurt too much and.. okay, some of it you could consider dark magic and it's quite often a stepping stone towards the use of dark magic but it doesn't have to be. It's more like an adventure and like any adventure it's easy to lose your way."

Willow pulled out another book and gulped – "Oh. Here's a dark magic book. It's in Incan? Who writes spells in Incan?"

Dawn – "Uh, the Incans?"

Willow opened it up and skimmed through it much to Tara's surprise.

Tara – "You read Incan?"

Willow, slightly distracted – "Just a few words. Uh, this book would appear to be for vampires. Practically every spell in it looks to be tailored for them. Uh, Dawn. Could you show me that tattoo Buffy gave you? The one that allows you to walk around in sunlight?"

Dawn hesitated for a few seconds then sighed, turned around and started unbuckling her belt. Willow didn't quite understand what Dawn was doing until she pulled down her jeans to expose her plain white panties. Dawn hesitated again and half turned around to address Willow.

Dawn – "Buffy drew it so you could only see it when I'm not wearing anything."

Willow bit her bottom lip and stayed like that with a constipated look while Dawn waited for her to say something.

Dawn – "Umm, so, what do you want me to do? How about if I just pull my underwear down a little? Just so you can see?"

Willow nodded in an almost hysterically high strung – "Mm hmm."

Dawn turned around again and pulled her underwear down on one side to expose the cuneiform style tattoo on the inside of her left buttock.

Willow knelt down so that her eyes were butt level and she compared the tattoo with something from the book.

Willow – "Yup. This book has the spell that your tattoo is enchanted with. So that explains why Buffy has this book. Eww, gross. Did you know that to do this spell the target has to eat a bat eating centipede?"

Tara, to Dawn – "You ate a bat eating centipede? Wait, hold on. How could a centipede eat a bat?"

Dawn – "Yeah, so? Buffy gave me centipede mush to eat. Can I pull my pants back up now?"

Willow – "Yeah. Sure."

Dawn, quickly redressing – "Thanks."

Willow folded the book black magic book up and placed it on the ground and searched for more

Dawn, fixing her belt – "So are the any other black magic books?"

Willow – "Uh, I don't know. We'll have to go through every book to find out for sure. It's a good thing we've got a few hours to do it in."

Dawn sighed, sat down on the floor and picked out another magic book from the chest.

Tara – "Dawn. Would you know what to look for?"

Dawn – "If the book is full of pictured of naked demons and goats, it's for sex magic. If it's not then it's something else. Am I right?"

Willow frowned but nodded – "Strangely, yes."

For the new few minutes, the room was quiet as the three girls skimmed through the various books for dark magic. After a time, Willow realized that she was the only one doing actual skimming. Both Tara and Dawn were stuck looking at the illustrations they had individually found.

Tara tilted her book and then turned it upside-down. She kept rotating it slowly until it was right side up but by the look on her face, she still couldn't quite grasp what she was looking at.

On the other hand, Dawn's eyes were flicking between the pictures and Tara, as if using the blonde for points of reference. She also did her amount of head tilting and confused yet curious glances.

Willow – "Hey, guys. This is a serious investigation we're conducting. If it's not dark magic then move on."

Tara had the decency to look stricken and they both put down her book and picks up a fresh one.

Dawn – "It's a pity you need more than one person to do this stuff. Like am I reading this wrong or is this spell for levitation? Levitation is cool."

Tara – "That doesn't make any sense. What use is levitation if you have sex to do it?.. Oh, doesn't matter. I think I just realized the why."

Willow – "Actually there are books on sex magic you can do alone. It's done through the use of fetishes and .. I haven't read those books so stop looking at me like that."

Dawn and Tara stopped looking at Willow like that and Dawn looked in the chest for more interesting things. Eventually she pulled out a small tin pot and opened it up to look inside. What she found was a bright yellow powder, almost like pollen.

Willow – "Don't sniff that."

Dawn sniffed it and then sneezed heavily, showering the entire room in the fine yellow powder from the little pot.

Willow couldn't help but laugh – "I told you not to sniff that."

Dawn rubbed her nose as it was still itchy – "Sorry about that."

Tara laughed too – "Dawn. You really are the worst vampire ever."

Dawn sulked – 'Tara. You know I don't like it when people say that."

Tara – "But it's true. Sometimes. How are we going to clean this up?"

Dawn blew some of the powder off a book and smiled – "See! It comes off easy. I'll just dust it off then give the room a vacuum. Buffy won't know the difference."

Tara sniffed the yellow powder on her sleeve, trying to get a smell for the powder.

Tara – "But isn't she a vampire? Won't she be able to smell that you've spread this everywhere?"

Dawn sniffed a little and shook her head – "Nah. It doesn't seem to have a smell. So, Willow, do you think Buffy's evil?"

Willow frowned – "This doesn't really confirm or deny. But it doesn't look good for Buffy."

Dawn frowned – "Well, if it turns out that she is evil then you'll hide me from her. She'd use her thong against me and make me do evil things too."

Tara, trying not to laugh – "Her thong?"

Willow - "I think she means thrall."

Dawn - "Thong. Thrall. Same thing. She doesn't use it much but it's really strong and I really can't fight against it."

Willow – "If it comes down to it, maybe you could swap Sires with Spike."

Dawn – "With Spike?"

Willow – "Sure. To fight Angel, Buffy did the same thing since she couldn't fight Angel's thrall but she could deal with Spikes."

Dawn – "Just wondering, how do you do that again?"

Willow – "Umm, well, it's kind of the same way you vamp someone except it's between two vampires. He bites you and drinks your blood. Then he lets you drink his."

Dawn, suddenly very interested – "You think he would drink from me? Think he would.. or you could make him drink from me and.. wow."

Dawn sort of spaced out at the prospect of getting necky with Spike while Willow and Tara shared concerned glances.

Tara – "Dawn, are you okay?"

Dawn – "Yeah. It's just, wow. That would soooo hot. Getting fed from, it feels so good."

Tara – "No it doesn't. Drusilla bit me and it really hurt."

Dawn – "Well, yeah, if you're human. I remember when I got first got bit and I'd never felt anything so painful in my entire life. But when you're a vampire, oh man, it's so different. I know its evil and everything but you would not believe how good it feels. It just feels so incredible."

Willow – "I know vampires like to bite but they like to get bitten too?"

Dawn – "It's not so much the biting part. It's the sucking part. It just feels… I can't explain it. There's nothing like it."

Willow – "I think you've stumbled across vampire sex."

Dawn – "Huh?"

Willow – "Well, think about it. Vampires procreate by biting someone and having that someone feed from them. It's like sex."

Dawn thought about it and grinned – "Hey yeah. So I'm like, not a virgin anymore. That's great."

Tara, smirking – "And you're a lesbian."

Dawn, confused – "Huh?"

Tara – "You've only done it with Buffy and Lambie."

Dawn thought about that and chuckled.

Dawn – "That's not entirely true."

Dawn pulled her hair back away from her neck and tilted her head back to expose her neck and the two sets of bite marks on either side of her neck.

Dawn – "I wasn't turned by Buffy. I was turned by Buffy AND Angelus. See, this bite is from Buffy and this one is Angelus. They both kinda fed me their blood too."

Willow, finding this all very interesting and amusing – "Oh, okay. But still, you're still two thirds lesbian."

Dawn smirked – "Wouldn't quite say that."

She pulled the neck of her shirt aside to expose a recent bite mark on her shoulder.

Willow – "What's that from?"

Dawn – "It's from Xander. Buffy let him bite me to see if he could stomach my blood. Turns out that he couldn't but for the brief minute, I'd never felt like more of a woman before. Buffy's so unbelievably fricken lucky to have Xander do that everyday for her. I'd do almost anything for that."

Willow, intrigued – "So do different vampires feel different? I mean, did Lambie feel different from Xander?"

Dawn – "Oh yeah. Lambie's sweet and what we shared will be with us forever. But Xander, oh baby. His lips and his strong hands and his firm, tight ass. He just drove me wild. I almost killed him when he stopped. I can't tell you how much I need it, it's crazy. After that, I almost had Lamb bite me again but I couldn't do that to her. She's so childlike, you know? It would be wrong."

Tara – "Seeing that you want it so much, I would do it for you but I'm not a vampire. I can't drink blood."

Willow, glumly – "It makes humans vomit."

Dawn – "You wouldn't have to drink my blood. Just sucking would be enough."

Willow, confused – "Suck what?"

Dawn, as if it was obvious – "My bitemarks."

Tara, also confused – "You'd like that?"

Dawn – "Yeah. It'd probably work."

Tara, to Willow – "I don't know. Should we?"

Willow – "Should we what?"

Tara – "Suck her bite marks.. and why does that sound so hilarious?"

Willow – "No. We shouldn't."

Dawn, snuggling up against Tara – "Why not? Come on. Please? Just this once? I'll do anything you want in return."

Willow sighed – "Oh, alright. But just for a while."

Dawn tilted her head and closed her eyes, waiting for the other two girls to make their move.

Suddenly feeling very silly, Willow and Tara slowly inched towards Dawn's neck.

Willow – "This is so wrong on so many levels."

Tara, chuckling – "I don't know. I think it's about time humans did this back to the vampires."

Normally the shy one, Tara reached Dawn's neck first and gently kissed Dawn on her side's bite mark. Dawn drew her breath in with a hiss and let it out with sigh. Not wanting to be left out, Willow nuzzled into Dawn's other side and smooched up to the bite mark on her side. Dawn hissed again and this time, let out what sounded like a whimper of pain.

Dawn – "That's good. That's so good."

Seeing the effect she had on Dawn, Willow thought to try something else and licked a line up from Dawn's collar bone all the way to her chin. In response, Dawn shuddered and held her closer.

Dawn, grabbing Willow's hair – "Oh ffffuh! Don't stop."

With Dawn's insistent direction, Willow was sent down again to suckle on the bite marks. To Willow it was so surreal, kissing another girl like that, being held by a girl like this, burying herself under her long silky hair.

The bizarreness of the situation started to overwhelm Willow and she backed off, pushing herself away from Dawn.

Willow, holding her head – "I feel weird."

Tara stopped necking Dawn to touch Willow's hair and laugh – "Wow. You DO feel weird."

Dawn pouted and pulled Tara back to her neck – "Don't stop."

Tara quickly forgot Willow and went back to Dawn duty while Willow tried to figure out what was going on.

Willow – "What was that powder? I think it did something to us."

Dawn growled and tackled Willow back down to the floor. All but biting Willow, Dawn started sucking on Willow's neck and finally Willow lost her concentration as the three of them bundled up into a giant, six legged necking machine of bedroom floor fun.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	39. 13c Almost friend syndrome

O-O-O-O

The vampire squad got to the library to find Giles, Wesley and Cordelia waiting for them.

Faith – "Hey limeys. We've got hot and cold running Buffys reporting for duty."

Buffy, smirking – "I'm the hot one, right?"

Faith smirked back – "Let's get your action in stereo before we vote on that, huh? Lambie might surprise us."

Wesley, as if talking to a baby – "Hello Lambronazi. My name is Wesley. Do you remember me from before?"

Lambronazi gave him a sanity questioning look but nodded just the same.

Buffy – "She's not a retard, Wes."

Faith – "At least not a complete one."

Giles – "Buffy, I was wondering if I talk to you alone… and with Wesley along for the ride."

Buffy shrugged and was led into the office while Faith, Lamb and Xander sat down at the table to give Cordelia some very awkward company.

Buffy – "So what's this about? More prophecy troubles from pre-reincarnated me?"

Giles – "Umm, ah, no. There haven't been any more startling realizations from her works for quite a while. No, this is an entirely different matter."

Buffy – "Oh, I got it. You want to talk about the videotape from the alternate future that never happened."

Giles faltered a little and shook his head.

Giles – "No, I'm afraid that's not the pressing concern."

Buffy frowned – "But that tape DID have something on it that'll help us, didn't it?"

Giles – "No, I'm afraid it raised more questions that it answered. So far, the council seems to be chalking that entire episode up to a freak occurrence."

Buffy frowned – "Freak occurrence? I dunno. Doesn't it seem a little suspicious for a freak occurrence? Xander's alternate shook on some sort of angelic Faustian deal and our Xander just happened to die at the same time AND that freaky demon warrior guy came out of thin air with a video recording from the future that never was. That's got to mean something. It's like someone upstairs is screaming at us, trying to get us to open our eyes to something that should be obvious."

Giles – "And yet we have no idea what that is."

Buffy – "Well, what about that Valkyrie chick on the video? I've never heard of them before."

Giles frowned and Wesley hemmed a little.

Wesley – "Although the Valkyrie are mainly known in Norse mythology, they are occasionally mentioned in other works. In the watcher archives in Devon, there is an obscure mention of the Valkyrie. Several hundred years ago, before atheism was invented, there was a little Christian mission in Africa where apparently a watcher met a Valkyrie in person and became rather obsessed with them afterwards. For the rest of his days he studied and searched for every scrap of information he could find about them. It seemed that he turned rather mad."

Buffy – "If he was a Watcher then that would mean he published his findings, right?"

Wesley – "Indeed, he was a watcher but he never published his findings. At least, not all of them. From what we can gather, this watcher believed that the Valkyrie were remarkably similar to those of myth. Just like in myth, they would roam battlefields looking for the souls of the strongest champions that humanity has to offer. But instead of leading them to Valhalla, they would lead them –"

Buffy, quickly – "To their doom?"

Wesley – "No. If you would let me finish, they would take them to some sort of island paradise and bring them back to life. Then they would train these warriors until the end of days to fight in the final battle between good and evil."

Buffy frowned and pouted in an odd way – "So, let me get this straight. They take the strongest warriors and then train them for the rest of eternity? God, that sounds boring. Uh, hang on. If this whole thing is real then wouldn't they have like the hugest amount of Slayers?"

Wesley – "Ah, no. That's what the watcher studying them thought at first but then he discovered that they only take men."

Buffy frowned again – "Really? Why?"

Wesley shrugged awkwardly – "I'm not really sure."

Buffy sighed – "So that's all you've figured out?"

Giles – "It would seem so. But if that woman in the video truly was a Valkyrie then it does emphasise that whatever is going on then it is very dire indeed."

Wesley, finishing for Giles – "As the Valkyrie are supposed to be passive observers, only active during the final apocalypse between good and evil."

Buffy did that funny frown and pout combo again and sagged.

Buffy – "Pooh. So if that isn't what you wanted to talk about, what is it?"

Giles – "It's about Faith and Dawn."

Buffy's face scrunched up in confusion. Faith and Dawn didn't really fit in the same sentence quite right.

Buffy – "What about them?"

Wesley – "We're concerned about them."

Buffy – "Look, I don't know what you think you know but there's nothing going on between Faith and Dawn."

Giles gave her a pained look – "We're talking about them separately. Both Wesley and I have noticed that they seem to be a little ..."

Wesley – "A little too vampire-ish."

Buffy waited for more.

Buffy – "And?"

Wesley – "Buffy, surely you have noticed how Faith doesn't seem to have any of the .. how should I put this? She seems to lack many of more human qualities that you and Xander possess?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow – "You're saying she's evil?"

Wesley – "No. We're not saying that. We're saying that we're concerned about her."

Giles – "And we're concerned about Dawn too but for different reasons."

Buffy – "Okay look. Faith is a little rough around the edges but Dawn? Come on. She's just a little kooky. There's nothing wrong with her."

Giles – "We're not saying there's anything wrong with Dawn. We're just suggesting that it might be better if we integrated them more into human society."

Buffy hummed thoughtfully – "Hmmm. I'm unsure to the voracity of that statement. Both Dawn and Faith are good friends with Tara and my Mom, so wouldn't they already be integrated?"

Giles – "While Tara and Joyce are perfect examples of humanity, we were thinking more along the lines of school."

Buffy looked at him oddly – "If you want Faith to go to school then you should talk to her about it. And good luck with that because I think you'll need it. But Dawn, she's staying home where's its safe and where Lamb can take care of her and vice versa because Lambie is, you know, Lambie."

Giles – "Well, how about if we gave Dawn a more active role in the Scooby gang?"

Buffy shook her head – "Ah no. I'm not letting her fight. She might be a vampire but she's a very weak one and she hurts easily."

Wesley – "Perhaps something along the lines of study?"

Buffy shook her head again – "Definitely not. All those books about evil demons and evil spells? I don't think so. I don't want to give her any ideas. She's very impressionable."

Giles – "Okay. If that's how you feel then fine. But Faith is really the main problem."

Buffy – "Why?"

Giles – "Because she scares us."

Buffy shrugged – "Vampires can be scary."

Giles – "But with you, Buffy, you seem to have a certain human aspect which Faith doesn't seem to have at all."

Buffy - "Faith just seemed to be more interested in the more carnal side of her nature. I think she finds it empowering. But she's not as out of control like everyone thinks she is. That is, unless she's doing something I don't know about. She's not, is she?"

Both watchers shook their heads but Wesley looked a bit guilty which made Buffy smile slightly.

Buffy – "See, nothing to worry about. She'll be fine."

O-O-O-O

Cordelia grimaced in the library after Faith said something really potty mouth.

Cordelia – "You really have issues. Don't you?"

Faith – "I have issues? We're talking about you here. I don't get why you two aren't still doing it. He's basically the same guy."

Cordelia – "Faith. Can you shut up?"

Faith - "If it's the whole Buffy thing, he aint cheating on you. There was that one time when he was turned but hey, you joined in on that, legs. So you haven't been missing out."

Cordelia – "Faith. I mean it. Shut up."

Faith, most definitely not shutting up – "That's another thing I don't get it. How can Xander not have sex with Buffy? She's so chirpy and bubbly and pleasant. Everything about her just makes you want to violate her in the most merciless way possible and wipe that nonstop plastic grin off her face. Maybe he's only got a thing for tall chicks."

Xander – "Faith! Shut the hell up!"

Cordelia – "No, its okay, Xander. She's just disappointed because you don't have a thing for ugly chicks."

Faith just grinned toothily at Cordelia's barb – "Ooh, you've got a pretty sharp tongue for someone without the sharp teeth to match."

Cordelia – "And you're pretty lively for someone without a pulse."

Faith chuckled – "You've got to realize that I'm not like B. I don't care that I'm undead. In fact, I kinda enjoy the whole vampire thing. Don't you wish that you could enjoy a vampire thing too?"

Xander – "Faith. Can we just stop talking about my vampire thing for a moment?"

Faith – "Man, I'm trying to help you out here and you keep sabotaging yourself. I guess B likes her men gloomy and scared of sex because that's how you turned out. Just like Angel."

Xander gasped – "Hey. You take that back. I'm nothing like Angel."

Faith – "Really? So why haven't you been getting your end off with legs here? Afraid you'll lose your soul?"

Xander – "What? No. That's absurd."

Faith – "So what's the reason? I want to know."

Xander – "Because, frankly, as far as she's concerned I'm not Xander anymore. I have different ideas about that but that's neither here nor there. If we had sex, for her, it would be like necrophilia. No wait. It WOULD be necrophilia. So we're not going there, okay? Explanation enough?"

Faith – "Yeah. I guess. So what about Buffy then?"

Before Xander got to answer, Buffy had returned with the two watchers.

Buffy – "Faith. If he wants to remain single then let him be. Like you guessed, I really do like my men gloomy and chaste."

Xander groaned – "Is it kick-the-Xander day and no one thought to tell me? again?"

Buffy, amused – "No. Valentines was last week. You couldn't tell?"

Faith's mouth fell open as she realized something – "That would explain why Tara was wrapping all those chocolate gift boxes. I wonder who she sent them to. Xander?"

Xander shrugged – "Don't look at me. I didn't get one."

Buffy looked up at Giles with curiosity that he found very off-putting.

Giles – "I'm afraid that I'm not the object of her affection."

Buffy – "But there's only so many guys she could send a present. If it's not you and it's not Xander then.. she's gotta be gay!"

Wesley, insulted – "Excuse me but did it occur to you that perhaps the young miss might have a wider selection of men to chose from than just the two you just mentioned?"

Buffy looked at him as if he was a very strange, unappetizing fish she had caught in a net.

Buffy – "Uh huh? Like who? She wasn't going to school last week so it's none of the boys here."

Before Wesley could spout about his mate-worthiness, Giles hemmed and spoke up.

Giles – "Relax Wesley. She's just trying to goad you."

Faith – "Whoa, hold on. Wes, tell me Tara didn't give a valentines to MY watcher."

Buffy chuckled – "Getting a little possessive there, aintcha?"

Faith – "Hey, you know it's not like that. It's just, that ain't cool. It'd be like Xander giving one to Joyce."

Xander acted patently dumb – "Why wouldn't that be cool again?"

Wesley – "I'm afraid that her tastes in men will forever be a mystery as I didn't receive any gifts for her. But have you considered the possibility that, just perhaps, instead of being the sender that she was in fact, the receiver of valentines gifts?"

Faith let out a loud peel of laughter – "Wes. You slay me! Tara getting a valentines? That's the funniest shit I ever heard."

Buffy gave Faith a long inquisitive stare.

Faith – "What are you looking at me like that for?"

Buffy, gasping – "Oh my god! You've never got a valentines, have you?"

Faith – "What? I mean, so! What's that got to do with anything? Like you have?"

Buffy – "Well, yeah. Last year I got a box of roses which were pretty cool."

Cordelia – "And I really raked them in this year. I'm talking about using an actual rake."

Xander frowned – "I even got some too which was kind of strange. I'm at reasonably sure they came from a girl too."

Faith didn't quite know how to process that information – "You lot are so lying. I'm way hotter than all three of you."

Xander – "Faith. I don't think it quite has to do with hotness."

Faith – "Then what's it got to do with then?"

Xander – "It has to do with.. that certain indescribable essence of being that makes men want to worship a girls feet with soap they bought in stores they'd never be seen dead in. It's that thing that makes men wear thongs for their girlfriend's sadistic pleasure and get their names tattooed in really painful places. I'm talking about love here. Love and creepy stalker infatuation. It's a finer line than you'd think."

Faith – "All I know is I get way more ass than you."

Buffy stifled a laugh and was seriously starting to wonder how stupid Faith was before she got vamped because sometimes she came off as a retard.

Xander – "Well, okay, maybe. But you're not exactly the sort of girl who gets valentines."

Faith – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Cordelia – "Faith. I'll give you it straight. You're nasty. I'm surprised people don't get STD's by sitting next to you on the bus. You just don't give off a romantic vibe."

Xander – "Geez, Cordy. I thought us vampires were supposed to be the tactless ones."

Faith – "Hey, I'll have you know that I've had boyfriends and did all playground romantic crap before. I've just outgrown it."

Cordelia – "When the hell was this? Didn't you leave school when you were twelve?"

Faith – "So? What's that got to do with it?"

Xander – "It's just, you're not the sort of girl who.. Buffy, help me out here."

Buffy – "Faith. What would you do if someone got all romantic, gave you roses and told you that he loved you?"

Faith considered this bizarre, alien scenario – "Call him stupid then screw his brains out for fun?"

Buffy – "Right. He bares his heart to you and you use him and lose him."

Faith – "Well, I might not lose him. Depends on how good a lay he is."

Buffy – "Uh huh. Real romantic. Now put Tara in the same position. What do you think she'd do?

Faith – "Umm, I dunno. Be deeply moved?"

Buffy – "Exactly. Tara's the perfect girl to give valentines to. Because she's sweet and lovely and she's beautiful in that womanly way of hers. While you, you're nasty, in a triple X rating on the dance floor type way. Sometimes I totally forget that you're supposed to be one of the good guys."

Faith – "So you're saying that because I'm so hot, that's why I don't get valentines?"

Buffy, humoring Faith – "That's it exactly."

Faith – "Oh. Okay. I get it now. Kinda makes everything fairer in a way. Tara gets nothing all year long but starts cashing in come valentines. That's kinda alright."

Giles hemmed for attention – "Now can we please start our patrol? Do you know what the time is? We're already three quarters of an hour late."

Xander – "Oh yeah. Gotta tell ya, I'm really amped for this patrol. Those vamps won't see me coming."

Giles, dryly – "That's nice. You're with Buffy and I while Faith goes with Lamb, Cordelia and Wesley. We'll take the west side while Wesley's team will take the more central west route. Any problems with this setup?"

Xander and Cordelia shared a glance and both of them shook their heads. They both seemed fine with a healthy amount of separation between them.

O-O-O-O

The patrol for Wesley's team was uncharacteristically quiet, especially for a friday.

That was until the radio Cordelia was carrying buzzed to life and Xander's voice came through it.

Xander, in a silly French accent – "'Allo 'Allo. This is nighthawk, over."

Cordelia, a little unsure - "Uh, Xander?"

Xander – "Oui, mon cherry."

Cordelia sighed, causing a hiss of fuzz to buzz through the radio set.

Cordelia - "Xander, why can't you ever use a radio in your normal voice?

Xander, still in his silly French accent - "Listen very carefully. I will say this only once."

There was a pause.

Cordelia - "Huh? You'll say what?"

Xander, in his normal voice – "Ahh, forget it. You're no fun. Look, Buffy thought we should tell you that there might be a few vamps running in your direction and so be on the look for them."

Right then, four vampires broke from the bushes and rushed the apparently unsuspecting hunters.

The two Slayers Faith and Lamb faced them while Cordelia and Wesley were caught entirely off guard.

Three of the vampires attacked the two smaller targets while the fourth one tackled both Wesley and Cordelia down to the ground at the same time.

Both Wesley and Cordelia squealed as the heavily built vampire bunched them together while the Slayers fought his companions.

Poof! Poof! dusted two vampires as the slayers each slid a stake in their hearts. That only left one vampire attacking Faith and the vampire tackling the humans.

Seeing her companions in trouble, Lambronazi reached down and grabbed the vampire on the ground by the neck. Its head turned around just in time to see Lamb's stake arm flash down and stab it into the back.

Then Lamb took a look back to Faith who was literally playing with her vamp.

She gave it a vicious one-two to the nose which left it stunned. It swung out with hook which she ducked under and came back up with an upper cut to their jaw, all but knocking them out.

In frustration, the vampire roared at her and she replied by reaching forwards and violently jerking it's head into an unnatural angle, obviously breaking it's neck.

The vampire instantly went limp and the only thing holding it up was Faith.

Faith looked around to make sure that there weren't any more vampires and she let her game face morph on when she decided that there weren't any.

While Wesley and Cordelia turned away with disgust, Lamb looked on with fascination as Faith bite into vampire with relish.

With her mouth still clamped around the vamp's neck, Faith's violently yellow eyes opened and smiled as they met Lamb's own eyes.

Holding back, Faith lifted off the paralyzed vamp and offered the vampire up to Lambronazi.

Before anyone else could object, Lamb gently embraced the vampire and leaned in to kiss Faith's bite marks. As soon as blood touched her tongue, Lamb started to hungrily suck at the wound. Faith grinned as Lamb's killing face turned on and she heard her teeth clamp down into the vamps neck.

While Lamb fed, Faith nuzzled her way to the other side of the vamps neck and fed from that side.

It was about then that Giles, Buffy and Xander came upon the scene with Giles and Xander recoiling in disgust.

Xander – "Gyah! Faith! Why are you teaching Lamb that!"

Faith ignored him while Lamb had reached her limit and stumbled away from the vampire, only to pratfall onto the grass and stay there as the vampire's blood worked its way through her system.

Her head lolled back and forth and she made these plaintive whimpers which totally confused most of those in the audience.

Xander – "What's wrong with her?"

Buffy sighed and helped Lamb back to her feet.

Buffy, explaining – "It's the vampire's blood. It's like catnip for Slayers and it looks like Lambies taken too much. You heard that? Bad Lambie."

Lambie knelt over and for a moment it looked like she was going to heave but nothing came out.

The vampire Faith was feeding on dusted and she let out a long, satisfied croon.

Faith, holding her stomach – "Ahh yeah. That hit the spot. We went out, killed some stuff and had a meal. So now all there is to do is have a bunch of mindless sex and the night's complete. So, who's up for it?"

Buffy shook her head.

Buffy – "We'll have to take a rain check on that, Faith. I found something that we should check out."

Faith pouted – "Uh, okay. But I'm holding you to some mindless sex later."

Xander frowned – "Okay. Why was Lamb all catnippy but that vamp didn't effect Faith at all."

Faith, smirking – "Give her a break, X. That was her first time so you can't expect to her to knock back a cold one like I can. But hey, I think she liked it."

Buffy sighed as her twin giggled in a ridiculously girly way.

Buffy, very concerned – "Hey, I don't sound like that when I laugh, do I?"

Giles hemmed – "Excuse me but if you're all finished with the finer points of blood play, can we get to work?"

Buffy nodded smartly while Faith just rolled her eyes and Lamb kept giggling away.

Xander – "Uh, but Giles, do you think its okay with Lambie acting like that?"

Buffy – "She'll be fine in a few minutes. The effects are pretty short lived."

Faith – "How'd you know that, Goldie? I thought you didn't go for the hard stuff."

Buffy – "It's not like I've never tried it. I just never saw the appeal. Anyway, I think we found a nest. We're going to check it out and if there's no one there then we'll camp in it and wait for the vamps to come back. You up for that?"

Faith nodded – "Sounds like a plan. So stop stalling and lead the way."

Giles and Xander led the combined forces to the edge of the graveyard, to a giant storm drain pipe that was jutting out over a pitiful excuse for a creek. They spent a minute or so climbing their way into the pipe, careful not to fall into the creek as it looked pretty muddy and no one wanted to clean that out of their clothes.

Once they had regrouped in the pipe, Cordelia let out the expected whine about not wearing the right shoes for sewer dwelling and they moved on, deeper into the pipe.

Wesley and Giles brought out flashlights with which they illuminated the sewer so that the humans in the group could see.

Xander, while they walked – "So, Buffy. What's vampire blood like for slayers? Could you explain it a little more?"

Faith - "You know what how it feels when you put your tongue against the contacts on a nine volt battery?"

Xander – "Sort of."

Faith – "Well, it tastes just like that. Except better."

Cordelia, sarcastically – "Oh yeah. That really explains it."

Faith – "Plus there's the whole life flashing before your eyes thing. Except it's not your life, it's theirs. It's really freaky but kinda fun when you get used to it."

Cordelia - "Ugh! What is that rank smell? It smells like something died."

Wesley – "The sewers perhaps?"

Buffy, quietly – "No. I believe Cordelia just caught a whiff of the unforgettable, full bodied bouquet of dead humanity. That's why we figured there was a nest here. Now can we please quiet it down a little? We don't want to scare off the vamps."

The Scoobies all hushed down and got into serious mode as they walked into a sewerage junction. The most noticeable thing about this junction was that one of the walls had caved in and given way to a large granite cave system.

Most vamps preferred urban settings to caves, even to the point of taking a sewer nest over a comfortably dry cave. But the smell of death was coming from the caves so that's where they investigated.

Cordelia – "Man. That smell is really getting rank. It's almost like AHH!"

Cordelia chose that time to trip up on something. When the torches turned back to her they realized that she had tripped up over a corpse. Upon seeing that, she yelped a little more and scrambled back up onto her feet.

Cordelia - "How come I'm always the one who finds the dead bodies?"

Xander – "Lucky I guess. Oh man. I guess that explains the smell. How long has guy been down here?"

Faith looked the corpse over. It was more of a skeleton than a fresh kill, so obviously it had been there a long time or something had been chewing on it.

Faith – "How do you know it's a guy?"

Buffy – "It's male because those hips are too small and those hands are too big."

Faith blinked at Buffy.

Faith – "Uh, I wasn't actually asking but okay. It's a guy. Since when were you CSI girl?"

Buffy – "I'd hardly call me CSI girl. It's just simple deduction."

Faith snorted at her – "Whatever you say. Uh, is this all there is?"

Everyone else looked around and Faith sighed in disappointment.

Faith - "Damn. This is a snipe hunt. No nest. Just a smelly white male in his mid twenties."

Faith squinted at Buffy, as if to make the blonde challenge her statement.

Giles – "I wouldn't be so sure about that's the only evidence."

Faith looked over at Giles who was pointing his flashlight towards the ceiling.

Faith – "What dya mean? Oh.. ah.. that's different."

Wesley, looking decidedly green as he looked up also – "Are those…?"

Buffy – "Yup."

Wesley – "Oh dear."

On the ceiling were the skins of a dozen or so human beings. They were strung from the ceiling like clothes on a washing line.

Faith – "Now I don't get this at all. I can understand feeding off humans but skinning them? What's the point?"

Buffy sniffed the air and frowned – "Uh oh. I think I know what's going on. Xander, can you smell cockroaches?"

Xander sniffed and nodded – "Yeah but we're in the sewers. So?"

Buffy – "And can you hear the scuttling of giant cockroaches?"

Xander, unsure if she was serious – "Giant cockroaches?"

Faith – "You're shitting us, right?"

Buffy, backing away from caves slowly – "Let's just slowly leave and if we're lucky then –"

But Buffy's quiet instructions were cut off the high pitched screech of the giant cockroach that blocked their exit.

Buffy growled and said a very bad word as the cockroaches call summoned other giant cockroaches which came scuttling towards them to defend their territory.

Buffy – "Everyone who's human stay behind the vampires. Watch out when they attack because they have razor sharp legs instead of hands."

Faith had enough time to look at Buffy oddly and mumble – "Razor sharp legs? What the hell?"

Then four pairs of a razor sharp legs pounced at the vampires, eager for evisceration. The four vampires jumped back as one and then each went about their own counter attack.

The cockroaches slashed wildly at the vampires but they couldn't match a Slayer's speed and most of them found themselves on the unenviable end of a Slayers counter attack.

Faith kicked one of the cockroaches with a sternum breaking power kick then staked another one in the place where a human's heart would be. The cockroach just squealed and brought one its arms up, causing Faith to do her own little squeal of pain as it cut a clean line across her stomach. She retaliated by grabbing one of its wings and kicking it in the shoulder. To her surprise, the wing came out with hardly any force at all and she found herself on her back on the cave floor.

The same cockroach attacked her and she was forced to dodge its attacks as she tried to get back to her feet.

Much to Faith's relief, Buffy grabbed the cockroach on one side while Lamb grabbed it on the other. They both pulled and it was literally torn in half, covering her in steaming innards and who knows what else is in demon cockroaches.

Maybe relief was pushing Faith's exact state of mind. She growled and looked for more demons to ventilate. That was when she noticed that Xander and Cordelia were struggling with a cockroach which had somehow cornered them both against the rock face.

She came to their rescue by punching her hand straight through the cockroach's neck and pulled it's head clean off from behind. From its headless neck, smoky white ichors sprayed all over Cordelia and Faith couldn't help but laugh.

Faith - "And that's the money shot!"

But apparently it wasn't as the cockroach was still trying to kill Xander and Cordelia despite the loss of its head and the huge loss of vital fluids.

Xander – "How do you kill these things?"

Seeing that they could do with more help, Faith helped them by lifting the cockroach off the ground and threw it across the ground. Then it got back up and ran off along with the other cockroaches who had decided to retreat.

The Scoobies didn't give chase, deciding to follow their enemy's actions and regroup.

Cordelia – "Giant cockroaches? What the hell! No one said anything about giant cockroaches."

Buffy – "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't realize there would be any until I saw the skins."

Faith looked up at the skins still hanging from the ceiling and then gave Buffy a confused look.

Faith – "The cockroaches skinned people? I thought there just mutant insects or something."

Buffy - "No. They're demons and they're just smart enough to be dangerous. They use human skins as clothes so that they can pass as human."

Wesley – "I've never heard of such a demon before. Miss Summers, where did you read about them?"

Buffy – "You won't find them in a book quite yet. They're new. They appeared in Manhattan around three years ago as the drone servants of a nameless godling of filth and regeneration. From Manhattan, they migrated to Cleveland and now it looks like they're nesting here too. I guess they like hellmouths."

Giles, curiously – "You seem to know a lot about this."

Buffy - "You'd be surprised what you learn in Cleveland."

Faith - "You've been there? From Tara, I heard it was bad. Is it worse than Sunnydale?"

Buffy shrugged – "There's less demons to humans, head for head. Although most of the scum you meet there just happen to be human too. I guess you could call it a different flavor of bad. Myself, I kinda like Sunnydale more. It's simpler."

With no warning whatsoever, Cordelia was assaulted by a silvery blue skinned demon girl that came out of nowhere. Both of them screamed as they struggled to gain some sort of advantage over the other.

Xander quickly reacted, yanked the demon off Cordelia and clobbered them in the jaw. The demon fell back and shook her dazed head as if to clear the cobwebs out of it. Before it got a chance to let it's head clear, Xander picked it up and threw them against a far wall. It yelped when it hit the wall then screamed as it fell down a crevice in the cave floor. By the way it's screams petered off into echoes, it was obviously a long fall.

Since the demon was taken care of, Xander turned back to find Cordelia on the ground and visibly shaken.

Xander, helping her stand back up – "Are you okay?"

Cordelia – "Yeah. Just rattled. That was really random. What was her problem?"

Xander – "I don't know. Crazy demon I guess. Are you sure you're okay?"

Cordelia nodded as she held out her hand to find it shaking. Then she looked up at Xander and hugged him tightly, which Xander wasn't expecting.

Cordelia – "You saved me."

Xander, not exactly hugging her back – "Uh, Cordy. I think you're in shock. Maybe we should get you back home?"

Cordelia nodded, still hugging him – "Yeah. Can you walk me home? I want to go home."

Xander – "Uh, Buffy, do you think we've done enough patrolling for tonight?"

Buffy – "Yeah. We should research these cockroaches anyway."

Wesley – "But Buffy, as you have said earlier, they're not in our books. So how could we research them?"

Giles smirked at Wesley – "I guess you never studied alternative research methods in the council."

Wesley – "Such as?"

Giles – "We find a demon and poke until it tells us what we want to hear."

Buffy – "I was thinking more about using the internet but hey, poking could be fun too."

Cordelia whispered to Xander – "Xander. Could you take me home now?"

Giles – "Yes. A novel idea. I do believe it's time we left this wretched place."

Faith sidled up next to Wesley and asked – "You want me to take you home? I'll protect from all the nasties. Promise."

Wesley, slightly more high pitched than normal – "No. That's fine. I'll manage on my own."

Faith smirked to Buffy – "He so wants me."

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Faith and Lamb came home to a mostly quiet home.

Buffy called out as she entered – "Hey guys, we're home."

She was a little concerned when she didn't get a reply.

Faith called out with her own announcement – "You'd better not have started the orgy without us or I've be pissed."

Faith chuckled and hugged Lamb around the shoulders, asking Buffy – "Hey, since Joyce is out of town, why don't we show Lamb the ropes in bed?"

Buffy chuckled too – "The ropes in bed? Nice choice of words but we've got guests. Talking of which, where are they? Oh, they're just upstairs."

Buffy could tell where they were by the muffled voices floating down the stairs.

Buffy walked up the stairs to find them and was followed by Faith while Lamb went into the kitchen, most probably for a midnight snack from the fridge.

Faith, walking up the stairs – "I'm gonna clean up. Sure you won't join this time?"

Buffy – "No, Faith. I don't think the bathroom could handle us both at the same time."

At the top of the stairs, Faith turned around and looked at Buffy oddly.

Faith – "Why? It's got a pretty big bath in it and .. oh! That was a joke. Almost missed it."

Buffy gave Faith a grin, opened the door to her bedroom and was hit with the overpowering scent of blood and sex.

Buffy, in total shock – "DAWN! Stop that right now! What do you think you're doing!"

Faith postponed her trip to the bathroom to figure out what Buffy's problem was. She peaked through the doorway and then her mouth did that funny goldfish thing until she got her composure back.

Faith – "DAMN! Now THAT is what I call a party."

O-O-O-O

Outside Cordelia's mansion estate, Xander and Cordelia were saying their goodbyes.

Tonight Cordelia's goodbye included her tongue in Xander's mouth.

Xander pushed her away in shock.

Xander – "Cordy? What the hell!"

Cordelia was similarly shocked – "What? Aint I good enough for you? Is this because I'm human?"

Xander – "No. It's because this would be wrong."

Cordelia – "Oh come on. You so want me."

Xander – "There's no denying that."

Cordelia sidled up to Xander with a grin and tried to get intimate again, only to have him push her back.

Xander – "Cordy, no! I'm not doing that."

Cordelia looked at him oddly – "Please don't tell me you're gay now that you're a vampire."

Xander – "What? No. It's just.. I'm just going to go now and we can talk about it later when my head is in the right. So good night."

Cordelia stopped him before he left and held him in place – "How about just one for road, huh?"

Xander – "Cordella, that would be so wrong… Oh okay. But we better be quick… No! No, I'm not going there."

Xander forcibly extracted himself from Cordelia and backed away as if she was an armed enemy.

Xander – "Uh, good night, Cordelia and, uh, that's all."

Cordelia didn't reply. Instead she just pouted and watched Xander fled off into the night.

The demon in Cordelia's body shook her head in confusion.

Her employer, the mayor, had given her a little fact-finding mission before she got to kill her targets. Interrogation wasn't her specialty but given her body swapping abilities, it's nothing too out of her way.

It was a pity for her that Xander wasn't so receptive to her overtures. In her experience, the best time to drill someone for information is in bed.

The demon pouted, disappointed that she didn't get drill Xander. She thought he was cute.

Demon in Cordelia's body – "A vampire with morals? That's just sick. Oh well. Let's go see how rich this bitch really is."

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	40. 13d Sprinkles of golden love

Authors note – Sprinkles of golden love. Funniest chapter title ever?

O-O-O-O

Willow found herself lying on the floor with a strange, wet and itchy feeling on her neck. As her vision came back into focus, she realized that Faith was holding Tara down while Buffy was doing likewise with Dawn.

Faith, giggling evilly – "Hurry up, B. I don't think I can hold a horny Tara for long. She might maul me."

But Buffy didn't reply as she was busy with Dawn, trying to make her childe stay still long enough so she could make them drink something. Eventually, Buffy got their mouth open and tilted a tiny flask up so some sort of magic potion slipped past Dawn's gums.

Once she was done with Dawn, she opened Tara's mouth and gave her a portion of potion too.

Willow – "Uh, Buffy, what's that you're giving Tara?"

Buffy seemed surprised that Willow was awake but not alarmed – "It's an antidote. Willow, what's the last thing you remember?"

Willow thought about it but found her mind to be a jumbled mess of events that obviously didn't happen.

She looked around the room to get her bearings and realized that Buffy's spell books were still scattered around the floor. So obviously something had happened but what? She focused again and remembered that Dawn sneezed some sort of magic yellow powder over all three of them and things started spinning out of control after that. But what she remembers couldn't have actually happened. It must have been some sort of drug induced hallucination.

But she hurt in strange places and her clothes were torn. Dawn and Tara looked to be in similar conditions too. Although, Tara's neck was covered in big purple hickeys while Dawn's wasn't so much.

As Dawn came out of her haze, she seemed to realize what had happened too.

Tara quickly followed Dawn, to find herself groping a very amused Faith.

Faith, as Tara slowly backed off – "Don't stop by my account, sunshine. I'm always up for a few sprinkles of golden love."

Tara – "What? What happened? Did we just.."

Willow, panicked – "I think we did. But-but it wasn't our fault. It just happened."

Dawn – "And what just happened? Because, I don't do things like that. I'm not like that. It was you two. You seduced me."

Willow gasped at Dawn – "I didn't seduce you! It was that powder that you sneezed all over us. It messed with her heads and made us do that."

Before Dawn could defend herself, she was picked off the ground by her neck and slammed against the wall by Buffy.

Buffy, angrily – "Congratulations Dawn. You just killed three virgins in one fell swoop. That's a real good job. I hope you're really happy with yourself."

Dawn croaked out – "It was accident. I didn't mean to."

Buffy growled at Dawn and squeezed her neck a bit tighter, digging her nails into the bite marks on both sides.

Buffy – "How many times have I told you not to go through my stuff? And you see what happens! You're just lucky Oz didn't stay the night or we could facing the problem of Tara and Willow being pregnant werewolves right about now. How would you like that, huh?"

Dawn's face contorted in pain and she tried pry Buffy's hands off her neck but didn't have the strength.

Buffy – "Are you listening to me?"

Buffy squeezed tighter and her nails drew blood on Dawn's neck. Dawn's agony reached its peak and her game face morphed on. Her brow knotted up only slightly and her fangs were barely noticeable, almost cute. But her nails grew out into claws and dug into Buffy's hands, drawing their own blood.

Buffy yelped in pain and dropped Dawn to the floor.

Buffy – "Bitch!"

And with that sentiment, Buffy kicked Dawn in the chest, causing grievous injury when she heard several ribs snap.

Before Buffy could dig into Dawn anymore, Willow had pulled Buffy back while Dawn panicked and scrambled out of the room. By the time Dawn had reached the stairs, Buffy had shaken Willow off and almost punched the red head in the face but managed to stop herself.

Willow, terrified – "Buffy. Stop! What do you think you're doing?"

Faith – "Yeah, B. Ease up. You're scaring the humans."

The front door slammed closed and Buffy groaned and forced herself to cool down.

Buffy – "I'm sorry, Willow. I was just so angry at her. I can't believe she did this. She could have hurt both of you so bad. Humans can overdose on that powder. I told her to stay out of my stuff because it can be dangerous in the wrong hands. But does she listen? No! She totally ignores me and now she's run off into the night to get herself killed."

Willow – "But that's no excuse to hurt her like that."

Buffy – "You're right. It's just, when I first opened the door, I saw her sucking on your neck and my head went through all these really bad scenarios where you're dead. I went kinda nuts. Are you okay?"

Willow nodded and Buffy hugged her tightly. Willow wasn't really sure what to do so she hugged Buffy back gently and hoped that was the right move.

Buffy, still hugging her – "I'm sorry, Willow. I shouldn't have done that."

Willow – "I'm sure Dawn will get over it in time but Buffy, why do you have these books and that powder to begin with?"

Faith, with much less concern – "And why aren't you sharing?"

Buffy slowly let Willow go and tried to think up the words to explain.

Buffy, looking at Faith and Tara – "Could you leave Willow and me alone for a few minutes. I need to explain all this."

Tara nodded while Faith looked at Buffy with a skeptical smile.

Faith – "Right. Explain. Gotcha."

But Faith and Tara left the room and closed the door without anymore insinuation.

Buffy started picking books up off the floor, shaking the yellow powder off them and then placing them back in the chest.

Willow – "Well, I'm waiting."

Buffy sighed and spoke dismissively – "Willow. It's a long story."

Willow – "How long can it be? Just say, Willow, I'm into some of the most disgusting magics you've ever heard of."

Buffy – "It's not like that."

Willow – "Really? So what are you doing with all this stuff? Why else would you have that super aphrodisiac powder stuff then?"

Buffy sighed again – "Willow, it's calynthia powder. It's not an aphrodisiac."

Willow frowned – "Uh, yes, it is. Why else would we, uh, have done what we did?"

Buffy tried to figure that out for herself.

Buffy – "I'm not entirely sure. It's a hypnotic which acts like a magical lubricant. It makes some types of spells go smoother. But it also makes people vastly more open to suggestion. Now, I've never just dosed a bunch of people with it and left them to their own devices before but I'm guessing someone thought it'd be a fun idea to start a make out session. Am I right?"

Willow nodded – "Dawn."

Buffy growled – "Dawn. Of course."

Willow – "But why would you have something like that? And these books? Buffy. This is a serious problem."

Buffy – "No. It's not. I'm not totally stupid. I don't actually use this stuff."

Willow – "Then why do you have it?"

Buffy sat down on the bed and patted it, prompting Willow to sit down next to her.

Buffy – "Now that's the long story part. I guess I'll start at the beginning. Do you remember back when Angel lost his soul?"

Willow nodded – "That wasn't even a year ago for me. So yes, I remember."

Buffy rolled her eyes at her own forgetfulness – "I keep forgetting it's only been that long for you. I really shouldn't. Anyway, you remember when I drank from Spike?"

Willow nodded, not entirely liking where this was going.

Buffy – "Well, it seems that when a slayer who also happens to be a vampire, like me and Faith and probably Lambie too, when we feed from another vampire, we absorb some of their memories along with their blood."

Willow – "So it's like you're half Spike now?"

Buffy looked at Willow blankly then cracked up into laughter – "Oh hell no! I'm not Spike! That's not what I'm saying."

Willow – "Then what are you saying?"

Buffy calmed down – "Umm, well, it's like this. When I first drank from Spike, I couldn't make sense of all the memories. But as time moved on, I started remembering things from his life. At first, it was kinda troubling. But when I realized that the memories couldn't really hurt me, I gradually got used to them. It was kinda strange, not only having my own memories but other people's floating around in my head. But it was also educational. From Spike's blood, I learnt about magic. Believe it or not, he's got a much better grasp on magic than Angel ever did."

Willow – "Uh huh. I'm really not liking where this is going. Buffy, you shouldn't follow Spike's example."

Buffy – "And I'm not. Not that much. It's just when Drusilla was injured and all lame, Spike thought that he perhaps he could use magic to cure her. That thought kept rolling around in my head, not really doing anything until I was thrown backwards in time. That was when I started thinking about that again and realized that if I had hundreds of years, I could research as much magic I could and find something to fix Angel with."

Willow – "Fix Angel? But Angel's not broken."

Buffy – "Yeah he is. If he makes love, he loses his soul. How is that not broken?"

Willow – "Oh. So you were looking for some way to give him back his soul permanently?"

Buffy – "Exactly. Because, Willow, I love him and I want to be with him. But that'll never happen if he could lose his soul."

Willow frowned – "Okay. I get that. But why do you have a ton of books on sex magic?"

Buffy hesitated and Willow thought for a second that the vampire was blushing.

Buffy, obviously embarrassed – "I, um, like to look at the pictures."

Willow – "Oh, uh. Okay."

Buffy – "After all, I AM a vampire. We tend to be pretty fixated on that stuff."

Willow – "You don't have to explain."

Buffy sighed with relief – "Good. Because I really didn't want to."

Willow frowned – "Umm. Hold on. You're saying that you have magic stuff because you were trying to find a way to give Angel his soul back forever? But all you have is sex magic stuff?"

Buffy nodded and looked down sadly.

Buffy – "I um.. I gave up on Angel. There's no way to give him back his soul permanently."

Willow frowned – "What do you mean there's no way?"

Buffy – "Willow, it can't be done. Every resoulment spell I've come across has a loophole or it doesn't even work. Also, some of those spells with loopholes don't work either."

Willow – "But how would you know? Have you tried them?"

Buffy – "Yes! I've tried them. They don't work. I was given over a millennia to find some way to help Angel and I couldn't and now we'll never be together and.."

Buffy stopped talking and just burst into tears. Willow wrapped her arms around the crying vampire then released them when she figured something out.

Willow – "But Buffy. Even if you did find a way to give Angel back his soul, there's no guarantee he'd want to be with you if you didn't have one. You tried those resoulment spells on yourself, didn't you?"

Buffy, so quietly it was less than a whisper – "Yes."

Willow – "I don't understand. Wouldn't that be like killing yourself?"

Buffy closed her eyes and kept sobbing away. Seeing this, Willow brought Buffy back into arm arms in what she hoped was a comforting embrace.

Willow – "Buffy, talk to me."

Buffy – "Willow. I'm scared of myself. There's no other way to say it. The slayer dreams don't even scare me anymore. I'm just killed in them. You get used to that after a while. What really scares me is my reflection, when I actually look at myself. It took me a while to realize it but deep down, in my core, I'm evil. The things that make me happy, they're all wrong. But I love you and I love my friends so I stop myself. Every day, I give up my happiness for your safety. But I can't stop wondering what will happen when you're gone. When you're in heaven, I don't want you to look down and see me … doing evil things. Willow, I need my soul. I need to be whole again. I can't keep this up much longer."

Willow – "Buffy. You're the strongest person I know. You've been through so much. You had to fight your true love and you went to hell and you were thrown back in time plus there's the whole nightly slaying madness. Out of everyone I know, including all the historical figures that spring to mind, you're the strongest person I know. I know you can hold on."

Buffy – "But Will, you don't know what it's like. I have these urges. They won't go away. I'm scared that one day I'll do something to someone I love. I don't know what I'd do if I hurt someone, like if I hurt you."

Willow – "Buffy. That won't happen. I know it."

Buffy – "How do you know?"

Willow – "Because I know you."

Buffy lifted her head to look Willow in the eyes. Instead of sadness or resolve, Willow saw something that Buffy had never shown her before.

Buffy showed Willow her hunger and Willow felt it as if it was her own. Her gut clenched and her mouth watered with anticipation. She felt her legs opening aching open and realized that her mouth wasn't the only thing watering.

Buffy eased forwards and Willow didn't fight her when she passionately kissed her. Willow felt she should objecting but reasoned that once these weird yummy feelings go away in a few seconds then she could then state her case without a mouthful of Buffy.

Willow let Buffy kiss her a bit longer and she noted that this was so much better than the first time Buffy kissed her. It was so passionate but yet so easy. It was like Buffy's mouth was meant for hers.

Then Buffy's tongue crept into her mouth and roused her own, even inviting hers out to play. Willow was swept up in the moment and offered no resistance as Buffy slid a hand under her skirt to reach the apex of her legs.

Willow let out a long moan of unrestrained passion as Buffy massaged her in the most intimate way possible. Willow had explored her own body pretty thoroughly but it was as if Buffy knew her body better than she did.

Although technically she had lost her virginity hours earlier, her first time could hardly be called sex compared to what Buffy was doing to her right then.

Still, Willow whimpered in need when Buffy stopped kissing her. Then Willow realized Buffy was lowering her head down her body with a definite destination in mind. She saw the hunger in Buffy's eyes again but this time it was blazing, blinding, burning.

This was Buffy the predator.

This was Buffy, her lover.

She hadn't even reached her peak yet but Willow knew that Buffy owned her now.

In Willow's normally voluminous mind, thoughts of prophecies, school, demons, vampires and even Oz were forgotten.

Buffy had slain them all.

In their place stood a victorious Buffy, eager to taste the spoils of war.

Buffy was the most masterful kisser and Willow realized that skill translated to other pursuits as Buffy's mouth found it's target under Willow's skirt and it suckled on the most vital of her fluids.

O-O-O-O

Downstairs in the kitchen, Tara looked up at the ceiling as the crooning grew louder upstairs.

Tara – "Oh goddess. Are they…?"

Faith – "Yup. Sounds like Buffy's got into Willow's creamy tightie whities and is giving her a good carpet bombing. Never thought I'd say it but I wish I was Willow right now."

Tara looked at Faith shocked, always surprised at how Faith dealt with matters of the flesh.

Faith – "I'm serious. Buffy can dive for pearls with the best of them."

O-O-O-O

Cordelia groaned as she woke up and tried to roll over, off the jagged rock that was poking into her spine.

She regretted it as fresh stabs of pain ran through her entire body, causing her to groan a little more.

She tried to remember what happened but what happened didn't make a lot of sense.

No, actually it made perfect sense.

Xander was evil and he kicked her down a hole.

She looked upwards and realised that she was incredibly far underground. In fact that fall was so far she was surprised she survived it at all.

She looked down at her body to find out how much damage she had sustained and realised that something really odd was going on.

Firstly, she was blue.

Secondly, she could see in the dark, which was a new experience for her.

Thirdly, her perfectly manicured nails had been replaced with perfectly manicured claws.

Fourthly, she screamed with a completely inhuman screech with quickly scared her into silence.

Cordelia, under her breath – "Okay, Cordy. You can do this. You're a demon. That's no biggie. We'll just go to Giles and… get killed for being a demon."

Cordelia let out another groan of more self-pity.

Cordelia - "Who am I kidding? I won't even have a chance to tell anyone my story if I don't even make it out of this hole."

Cordelia examined the smooth limestone crevasse wall but found it extremely sticky for some reason. It didn't make a lot of sense until she looked at the palm of her new demony hands and realised the fingers had strange suction-pad like circles across the pads.

Cordelia - "Well, this should be interesting."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	41. 13e Single White Female

Authors notes – You might have noticed there's been a teeny gap between this and the last chapter I wrote. That's because I looked at this fic as a learning exercise. I personally feel that it's an exercise that I've gotten all I'm going to get out of it and it's time to move on.

But since people have been asking, I'll bend over one more time.

Hope you all enjoy it.

O-O-O-O

As Willow woke, she found that she hurt in strange but strangely satisfying ways. She also noticed her bed felt a little lumpier than normal. It was a little cooler too but it wasn't that uncomfortable.

When she opened her eyes she found herself trapped in the embrace and adoring gaze of Buffy.

Buffy, with a content smile – "Hey, sleepy head."

Willow gasped in, as if the gravity of last night had just landed upon her.

Buffy felt Willow's guilt as if it were her own and winced slightly as Willow stayed quiet. Then Buffy chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

Buffy, smiling – "Come on, Willow. You can't get shy now. Not after last night."

But Willow frowned still and tried to think of something logical or something supportive or of the expected thing to say but she found her mind painfully empty so she went with her heart instead.

Willow, approaching angry – "You.. You seduced me."

Buffy tried to look sheepish but ended up just looking very pleased with her self.

Buffy – "Yeah. I did."

Willow, acting appalled – "You're evil… an evil … uh –"

Buffy, trying to helpful – "Bitch?"

Willow, unable to hold back a smirk – "Yes. You're an evil bitch."

Buffy playfully smacked Willow on the arm.

Buffy, playing coy – "Stop it. You're making me horny again."

Willow's eyes widened – "Really? Is that possible? I thought you would've worn yourself out from last night."

Buffy – "I don't tire very easily."

Willow, frowning – "I remember. Also, I remember that I sort of had all the fun last night. I didn't..-"

Buffy placed her hands on Willow's shoulders, as if to hold her back.

Buffy – "It's okay, Willow. You don't have to pay me back. Unless you really want to."

Willow realized that yes! Yes, she really wanted to. She wanted to do to Buffy what Buffy did to her.

Well, maybe not everything Buffy did to her. She didn't realize just how freaky Buffy actually was. There didn't seem to be a square inch of Willow's skin that Buffy wouldn't worship. What was more surprising was that Willow loved that about Buffy.

As Willow considered her options, Buffy pressed herself against Willow, causing the redhead to quit thinking so deeply as the blondes breasts squished insistently against her heart.

Buffy – "I just want to tell you, last night was a dream come true for me. I've wanted to taste you for so long. Now that I finally have and you were even better I imagined."

Willow looked at Buffy with concern and put her hands to her neck, checking for bites.

Willow, highly strung - "When did you bite me?"

Buffy, smirking – "I didn't have to."

Willow, realizing what Buffy meant – "Oh. Uh.. thanks?"

Buffy, with mirth – "No-no, thank you."

Willow gulped and worked up the courage to press herself back at Buffy. So far, their liaison had been mostly one-sided with Willow wallowing in Buffy's adoration for her but Willow's sense of justice prevailed and she just had to pay Buffy back for all her badness.

Willow rolled over and was pleasantly surprised how pliable and accommodating Buffy was for her. To the rest of the world, Buffy was a ditzy blonde bubble head with no super powers to speak of. But right now, Buffy really was that girl for Willow.

Under the covers, their bodies kissed and their legs pretzelled together. Last night, Buffy was the hunter but in the light of morning, she was the prey. As Willow ground herself gently against the other girl, Buffy arched her back in need. Seeing the open bounty of her neck, Willow captured Buffy's neck with her mouth and got a delicious moan in return.

But as Willow moved her mouth down Buffy, nibbling over her collar bone, Buffy stopped the red head, pushing their head gently off her.

Willow frowned and felt that she was doing something wrong.

Willow, trying to apologize – "I'm sorry. I know I'm not very good but it's my first time, uh, you know. I've only read about this sort of thing in books."

Buffy – "No. It's not that. You're good. You're too good and that's the problem."

Willow, confused – "That's a problem?"

Buffy – "I kind of wasn't expecting you to... Willow. We can't do this. Not like this. I-I could hurt you."

Willow – "You weren't hurting me last night."

Buffy – "But I didn't get any last night. When I get a happy, I can get kinda violent. I could hurt you unless…"

Willow – "Unless what?"

Buffy tried not to smile but failed.

Buffy, sheepishly – "I have some things you could restrain me with."

Willow – "Oh, umm. I kind of saw them last night."

Buffy – "Oh. You did? Well, uh, we don't have to use them but we can't– "

Willow cut Buffy off by placing a finger on their mouth.

Willow – "Are you okay with me tying you up?"

Buffy nodded and now it was Willow's turn to hide her smile. Without any more words, Willow leant over and pulled out Buffy's toy box from under the bed. She opened the lid and couldn't help but get a thrill at the thought of using Buffy's toys against her.

Willow, sounding uncertain – "Umm. What should I use?"

Buffy – "Well, we need something for my arms and something for my legs. Beyond that, you can use whatever you want on me."

Willow chuckled and pulled out a leather flail, holding it up so Buffy could see.

Willow – "Anything? Are you sure about that?"

Buffy nodded wickedly, very eager for a good flailing.

Willow, putting the flail down slowly – "Uh. Maybe we'll try that later. Umm, I think this would do for your legs."

Willow held up a pair of padded cuffs for Buffy's inspection. Under the sheets, Buffy brought her knees up so Willow could chain up her ankles. Once that was done, Buffy let her legs down and jerked the cuffs a few times to check they would keep her from thrashing around too much.

Buffy – "Yup. That's good. Just remember, don't get let anything get caught between my knees or I could crush you. That wouldn't be good."

Willow took this in – "You're not joking about being dangerous, are you?"

Buffy, somewhat sadly – "No, I'm not."

To put Buffy's mind at rest, Willow kissed the blonde and once again marveled at how amazing Buffy's mouth felt against her own. But unlike last night, Buffy held back and eventually pushed Willow away again.

Buffy, starting to pant – "Willow, you'd better restrain my arms because you don't know what you're doing to me."

Willow was caught between wanting to satisfy Buffy and being curious at the fact that Buffy was panting. It was a well known fact that vampires didn't need to breathe so why would Buffy need to breathe so much? She guessed that it must be some sort of atavistic trait from her long lost humanity.

Eventually though, she decided to help Buffy out and pulled out another restraint from the box. This one puzzled her. It was a set of three leather belts. Two smaller belts attached to the middle of one much larger belt.

Buffy, explaining – "The middle part can go around my neck or around my waist and you can decide whether you want my hands in front or in back."

Before Willow had the chance to ask, Buffy had placed her hands in the belts and waited for Willow to tighten them. Willow went along with the play but was starting to wonder who exactly was in charge here, the person being tied up or the person who was supposed to be in charge.

She disregarded those annoying thoughts as she latched the third belt on around Buffy's neck with her arms up, elbows bent and her wrists attached the back of her neck.

Willow noticed a sudden change come over Buffy now that she was totally restrained. It was as if Buffy couldn't let herself be free until she was chained up.

Willow, teasingly – "Now what will you I do to you?"

Buffy – "If you're looking for inspiration, try my toy box."

Willow frowned in thought – "Is that a euphemism?"

Buffy snorted – "I guess it is. But seriously, take a look. You might find something you like."

Willow, pensively at first – "I don't know. This is all a little kinky for me and it's only my first – Ooh! Can I try this?"

Buffy blinked in surprise at Willow's weapon of choice but nodded.

Buffy – "Sure. Go ahead. Just do something to me soon because after last night, I really need something."

O-O-O-O

On the couch downstairs, Faith woke up the sounds to Willow and Buffy starting up their sexcapades yet again. Once she realized what was going on, she groaned and held a pillow over her face to drown out the moans. It didn't work due to her supernaturally enhanced hearing.

Sometimes being a vampire really sucked.

Through the pillow, she heard Tara come down the stairs. By the thumping of her foot falls, she hadn't slept well either.

Faith, painfully cheerful – "Top 'o' the morning to ya."

Tara blinked sleepily at Faith for a few moments then looked at the offending ceiling where the very distracting noises were coming from.

Tara – "I thought they'd be tired from last night."

Faith – "Nope. They're all rested up. It's the sex. You always sleep better after sex which is why I recommended some. But noooo. You had to kick me out of bed. With your feet! I guess Red didn't do a good enough job gaying you up last night. You still won't put out. Not even for me! What's wrong with you?"

Tara couldn't find the energy for a reply.

Faith, with a slightly worried look towards the ceiling.– "You know, Buffy's gonna kill that girl at this rate. Uh, hey, aren't we supposed to be somewhere today?"

Tara shrugged then shuffled listlessly off towards the kitchen.

O-O-O-O

Giles, Wesley and Oz were waiting in the school library for girls who weren't showing.

Giles – "I did say ten o'clock, didn't I? Ten A.M?"

Wesley looked up from the small collection of papers he was reading to reply.

Wesley – "I believe so."

Then he turned back to his papers to read them.

Oz frowned in a not so expressive way. He couldn't help but get the sinking feeling that something had happened to Willow. He took the decision to distract himself instead of worrying.

Oz, to Wesley – "Interesting read?"

Wesley – "Oh, well, yes. I suppose is it. I'm reading the reports from a watcher supervising the Slayer who is currently in Hong Kong."

Oz, trying to distract himself – "I remember hearing of her. What's she doing nowadays?"

Wesley – "Well, it's quite interesting. She's on the trail of a rogue Fyarl demon."

Oz – "A rogue demon? Is that like a demon who isn't acting all demony?"

Wesley – "Ah, not quite. You see, there are rules amongst most demons and this demon seems to ignoring all of them. What's even more curious is that the actions of this Fyarl indicate that it's being controlled or guided by some ulterior force. It's really a monster too. Possibly even on par with a Slayer."

Oz – "It sounds like that Slayer has her work cut out for her."

Wesley – "Yes. Quite. But Fyarl demons do have their weaknesses so I'm sure she'll be fine. The council have even given her alchemical protection against its paralyzing phlegm."

Oz – "Oh. Uh. That's good, I suppose. Look, if it's okay with you two, I'm going to call them."

Giles – "Please, go ahead and give them an earful from me while you're at it."

O-O-O-O

Faith was watching what passed for heavy metal on MTV when the phone rang. She almost missed its ringing as it beat in tune with the drums. She pushed a button on the remote and the TV was muted. Then she went to answer the phone and was surprised to find that the juicy sex sounds from upstairs had ceased.

Thinking nothing more of it, she answered the phone in the dining room.

Faith, answering the phone – "Summers residence. What for can I do ya?"

Oz, the voice on the line – "Hello, Faith? I was looking for Willow. Is she there?"

Faith paused before answering as she heard two pairs of feet coming down the stairs.

Faith, out loud but also into the phone – "Willow? Yeah. I think she's around somewhere. Hey, aren't you her boy? What's that like?"

Buffy and Willow turned into the dining room to find Faith on the phone and wearing a grin like the cat who caught the canary. Much to Faith's surprise, they actually looked ready to face the world and not sexed out at all. Willow still had a neck full of hickeys but it seemed that both of them had showered and dressed for the new day.

Buffy, already knowing and dreading the answer – "Faith, who's on the phone?"

Oz, through the phone – "Uh, it's okay. Umm, could you find Willow for me, please?"

Faith, ignoring the question – "So what sort of games do you two play? I can think of a game. I call it little red ride on top. She says oh, what a big teeth you have, grandma and you say they're all the better to eat you out with, my dear."

Willow gasped and looked even whiter than normal – "Oz?"

Oz – "Uh, we're not like that. I don't act like a grandma."

Faith – "Come on, Fido. Everyone knows kinky sex makes the world go 'round."

Buffy growled ever so slightly and it caught Faith's attention while Willow almost didn't notice it.

Buffy, seriously – "Faith. Give Willow the phone."

Faith shrugged off Buffy's cold shoulder but gave Willow the phone anyway.

Willow slowly put the phone up to her ear with the type of resignation you'd normally find in death row inmates.

Oz, testing the line – "Hello?"

Willow flinched back to reality – "Oh! Yes. I'm here."

Oz – "Willow? Is everything okay?"

Willow, kinda frantic – "Yes. Yes! Everything's okay. Why wouldn't everything be okay? It's okay here. Totally copasetic. Kosher even. Not that you – yes! We're fine. Umm, uh, is that all you wanted to know?"

Oz, slightly unsure – "I guess so. It's just that we had a meeting planned and I thought you were going to come. Buffy was invited too."

Willow – "Oh. The meeting! We forgot. Yeah. I forget. You know me. Forgetful Willow. Forgetting every little thing that pops into my head."

Oz – "Actually, I haven't noticed that before."

Willow, slightly defensive – "Well, I'm not perfect. I'm a human being, made out of flesh and blood and I'm fallible. I mean, throw me a fricken bone."

Oz – "Are you sure everything is okay?"

Willow, quickly – "Yeah. I-I just have to go. We'll be there soon."

Then she slammed the receiver down on the phone and slumped against the wall, face first.

Buffy fitted behind Willow and winced as if Willow's pain were her own.

Buffy, trying to be comforting – "I'm sorry, Willow but you don't have to worry. I'll make this good."

Willow, her voice muffled by the wall – "How? How are you going to make this okay? Buffy, we... we… I can't even say what we did!"

Faith chuckled – "Man, virgins crack me up."

Buffy, glaring at Faith very coldly – "Faith, can you be quiet for once?"

Faith winced at Buffy's tone. Buffy had never talked to her like this before. Buffy had been angry at her more times than Faith could readily count. Faith really enjoyed pushing the blonde's buttons and she knew Buffy enjoyed their violent make up sex as much as she did. But the way Buffy was looking at her right then almost made her shiver.

Obviously this wasn't something Buffy would joke with and for once Faith backed off.

Buffy turned Willow away from the wall to face her.

Buffy – "Willow. This is going to be okay. You have to trust me."

Willow blubbered a little as tears rolled down her cheek and Buffy kissed her gently. As the redhead kissed back, it just made the tears swell even more.

Faith watched the pair in silence and felt a stirring in her gut that shouldn't be there. It wasn't any type of lust but a cold bitter feeling that didn't sit well with her. She quietly slinked out of the kitchen, feeling out of place there.

Willow, pulling away – "Buffy, could.. I need to think about this."

Buffy nodded somewhat sadly – "Yeah. I guess you do. I'll just get some things from upstairs and then we should be off to the meeting."

They both turned away from each other as Buffy left the room and headed up the stairs to find Faith waiting for her at the top.

Faith – "Hey, B. How about before you beat out, you help me out?"

Buffy, not getting Faith's request – "Help you out?"

Faith – "Yeah girl. You think you two can make a racket like that and without consequences? Man, I'm so horny."

Buffy, not in a helping mood – "Deal with it yourself."

Faith, blocking Buffy's path – "I've beaten my kitten like it owes me money but you know me, that just doesn't cut it for me. I've gotta have another body in the mix. Come on, help me out. How bout some ying yang? You can even be on top."

Buffy chuckled dryly – "Faith. Find someone else. I'm tapped out."

Faith, smirking – "You don't have to put an act on for Willow anymore. She knows you're a freak and you know you want to. Can't fight nature, B."

Buffy, pushing Faith's creeping hands aside – "No, Faith. I'm really not in the mood. Not with you."

Faith blinked at Buffy askew then chuckled in denial.

Faith, still laughing – "You're saying that human satisfied you? That nerd?"

Buffy, decidedly not laughing – "Yes. That's what I'm saying and don't call her a nerd. It's insulting."

Faith – "B, you can't fool me. I get what you're playing at."

Buffy – "I'm not playing. Now get out of the way please. I need to get ready."

Faith, not stepping aside – "You're trying to make me jealous."

Buffy blinked at Faith – "You're jealous?"

Faith – "No. It's just you're trying to make me jealous."

Buffy sighed – "Faith, I'm tired. Why don't you just give Spike a visit? And bring Dawn home while you're over there."

Faith, confused – "Dawn?"

Buffy, moving past Faith – "Yes, Dawn. She spent the night over at Angel's. Just tell her I'm sorry and everyone else forgives her and its okay to come back. Could you do that? Thanks."

Before Faith had a chance to answer, Buffy gave Faith a peck on the shoulder and closed the door to her bedroom, ending the conversation.

Faith stood there with a disgruntled face for a few moments before shrugging off her idleness and bolting down the stairs.

Faith, taking a jacket and opening the front door – "I'm going out!"

With a slam, Faith left with Willow watching her leave from the kitchen.

Tara, from behind Willow – "I know what you're thinking."

Willow yelped, not having seen Tara.

Willow, with a hand to her heart – "Geez. Don't do that. And no, I don't think you know what I'm thinking."

Tara, sitting down at the kitchen island – "You're worried about Faith being angry with you."

Willow, sitting down too – "No. I'm not. Well, maybe a little. I mean.. this is all going so fast. I mean, there's Oz and there's Faith and there's Angel and.. I don't believe this, I'm the other girl. I'm the one who's stealing someone's girlfriend and.. I can't believe how not weird this is. I-I must possessed or something. This isn't me."

Willow looked down then looked back up at Tara who wasn't even looking in Willow's direction. Obviously Tara had her own detachment problems this morning.

Willow – "Is Faith going to be okay? Because I don't really want to get between two slayers. I bruise easily."

Buffy, coming back into the kitchen – "Oh, I don't know, Will. I think you might like it but you'd have to ask Faith very nicely. And you haven't eaten. Cap'n crunch?"

Willow, not really in an eating mood – "Sure."

Buffy, holding a box of cereal – "Tara?"

Tara – "No thanks, I've eaten."

No one seemed to have anything to say as Buffy poured a bowlful of cereal and handed it to Willow, complete with milk and spoon.

Buffy, patting Willow's hair slightly – "Eat up. We've got a meeting to get to."

Willow nodded wordlessly and started chewing Cap'n crunch in a mechanical fashion.

Buffy noticed Tara was acting even more of a shoe gazer than normal so she decided to pry the shy witch with talk.

Buffy, taking hold of Willow's free hand – "Tara, I know this is a sudden change but Willow and I love each other very much and we want you to be okay with that."

Tara couldn't quite get over just how surreal this all was but figured that she had to say something as it would be rude to stay quiet.

Tara – "I-I-I'm sure you and Willow will be very happy."

Willow gently unclasped her free hand from Buffy and put a serious face on.

Willow – "Buffy. I don't want to keep your hopes up. I'm not sure if me and you can.. It's very complicated."

Buffy, stroking Willow's hair – "And I told you that I'll fix everything."

Willow took Buffy's hand and pulled them away from her hair, obviously trying to emotionally distance herself from Buffy.

Willow – "Can we just act like last night didn't happen for a while? I just can't seem think straight after last night. So much happened and.. I need time. Please?"

Buffy nodded reluctantly and slowly folded her arms to stop them wandering.

Willow, between spoonfuls – "Does anyone have any idea on how am I going to explain this to Oz? Whenever I think about talking to him in person, I keep fainting… in my thoughts, you know. Like, hi Oz, blonk!"

Buffy, smiling decidedly evilly – "Don't worry, Will. I've got a plan for Oz. It's kinda evil but I think you'll like it."

Willow's eyes widened in horror.

Willow – "Buffy! You are NOT killing Oz."

Buffy blinked at Willow in confusion – "Why would I?... Oh, sorry. I was talking about a completely different type of evil."

This calmed Willow just long enough for her to take in another spoonful of cereal before turning back to Buffy with a confused look.

Buffy, talking to herself – "I wonder how Oz feels about group sex."

O-O-O-O

Cordelia had snuck between bushes, over fences and negotiated with the shadows of Sunnydale only to find herself hiding alongside Xander's house

She couldn't go home for obvious reasons and she had decided not to go to the Slayers for slaying related reasons. Instead, she had decided that Xander was her best bet. She wasn't exactly sure why since he was the one who pushed her into that bottomless pit last night but her gut told her that he was her best bet.

Also, she knew all sorts of personal details about him that she could use to prove that she was Cordelia. They were details which she didn't want anyone else to hear and details which, as far as she knew, only Xander knew of. If anyone could tell that she was really Cordelia, it would be him.

She knelt down at one of the basement's windows and peeked inside. She winced not only because her back was killing her but she hated kneeling on concrete for fear that it would give her "hooker knees."

As her eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark inside the basement, she spotted Xander sleeping face down on his bed, totally naked except for a sheet half covering his butt. It was enough cover to stop Xander from mooning the ceiling but just enough so Cordelia could remember just how steely hard those buns could be.

Cordelia winced as her demon body reacted lustfully to those thoughts. The back of her neck clenched up painfully and a growl threatened to escape from her throat but she clamped down on it. Slowly, the clenching slid down her back, knotting up the muscles as it went and making her back arch. To her, it felt like she had something burrowing under her skin, digging its way to a destination she really didn't want it to go.

The body seemed to notice her sudden change in mood and eased off on whatever bodily process it was about to run. Cordelia shook her head clear, feeling a little lightheaded and decided in no uncertain terms that she will not check out Xander's ass ever again.

Turning back to the problem at hand, she decided to go for the most direct approach and simply called out to Xander through the tiny basement window.

Cordelia - "Xander. Pssk!"

He didn't even stir when she called. This wasn't unusual for Xander who slept like a log most of the time. Although, it must have been around noon so he should've woken by now.

It seemed she'd have to go in there and wake him up personally. She could just tie him up first so he doesn't outright attack her when he wakes up.

She opened the window more and slowly slid herself through it, face first. The demon's gecko like hands came in useful yet again, helping her to crawl in without falling flat on her face.

Once she was inside, there was a blur of brunette hair in the peripherals of Cordelia's left eye and in the next instant she found one powerful hand wrapped around her mouth and another grabbing her in her swimsuit area.

A cruel, inhuman voice whispered in Cordelia's ear – "I didn't expect to see you again but this could be fun."

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Tara and Willow arrived at the library, all in different clothes than what they were wearing in the kitchen. Both Tara and Willow were now wearing scarves to cover their hickey covered necks.

Giles – "It's about time you showed up, Buffy. You seem to be the only one familiar with these so called cockroach demons and we could have used your help hours ago."

Buffy – "I'm sorry. We had to change our clothes again after Willow coughed her breakfast up all over us."

Oz came up to Willow and hugged her, surprising her despite the fact that she saw him coming.

Oz, while hugging – "I was worried."

Willow, trying to smile as the hug ended – "Well, you didn't need to be because I'm fine. Right?"

Oz's light smile of relief disappeared with Willow's fake smile collapsed. When Oz looked at the other girls, they were similarly crestfallen.

Oz, touching Willow's shoulder – "What's wrong?"

Willow gave Buffy a pleading look – "Buffy, I can't do this."

Oz – "Did someone die?"

Buffy – "Oz. Could I talk to you in the other room for a moment?"

Oz frowned – "Why just me?"

Buffy – "You'll understand once I start talking."

Oz – "But no one has died?"

Buffy – "No, no one has died but we need to talk."

Oz hesitated and looked back at Willow – "Are you going to be okay?"

Willow nodded and Oz followed Buffy lead to somewhere else in the school. The two girls watched Buffy leave, waiting until she was out of earshot to talk.

Giles – "What happened and why are both of you wearing scarves when it's not that chilly?"

Willow looked towards Tara but the blonde seemed to be even more embarrassed than she was.

Willow – "Umm. It's a long story."

Giles, folding his arms – "Then I suggest you start it now."

Willow took in a full breath before starting her story.

Willow, in full babble mode – "It's like this. We were talking to Dawn and it turns out that maybe Buffy is evil so we checked out her room and found a whole heap of .. not exactly good magic books and we started looking through them and Dawn found some sort of magic powder which she sneezed on and we all got covered in it and it altered our mental state and we kind of.. things happened."

As Willow's babbling trailed off, Giles started to form an idea of what happened while Wesley was a stuck a few pages back.

Giles – "These things that happened are why you're wearing scarves?"

Willow nodded with her mouth pursed together tightly in a very unflattering but mildly funny way.

Giles – "But you're both okay, physically?"

Both girls nodded.

Tara, to Willow – "And.. other things happened too."

Willow – "Yes. Other things which... we don't need to tell them about the other things."

Giles, refolding his arms – "What other things?"

Willow – "It's nothing. It's personal."

Giles – "I take it that this nothing is why Buffy is talking to Oz?"

Willow – "Um. In a strange coincidence, yes it is."

Wesley – "Excuse me but will someone explain to me what's going on?"

Giles ignored Wesley as he tried to figure out the difference between things and nothings. Then he understood.

Giles – "This nothing, it involves Buffy, doesn't it?"

Willow's mouth fell open, surprised that Giles would figure it out.

Willow, whining with her explanation – "I-I was in a strange place last night. It was the magic powder."

Giles sighed with disappointment – "Oh Willow. This isn't good at all. How is Buffy handling this?"

Willow – "I think she wants to go steady."

Wesley, squinting with confusion – "Wait. Buffy likes girls?"

Giles, to Wesley – "You didn't know?"

Willow, to Giles – "Wait. You knew!"

Giles – "She's not very good at hiding her affections for you, Willow. This must be dealt with carefully. Oh good lord, Oz. Is he safe with her?"

Willow, embarrassed for a different reason – "She promised she wouldn't kill him."

Wesley, trying to get his head around everything – "So Willow and Buffy –"

Willow, cutting him off – "Don't say it! Do not say it."

Giles – "What was this talk about Buffy being evil?"

Willow – "It's just a theory. We're going to investigate it but it's still just a theory. Obviously, we're not letting any of the vampires in on it because .. they could be in on it."

Tara – "Except Dawn."

Willow – "Yes, except Dawn who came to us with this in the first place."

Giles – "Oh. So back to Buffy. I think we should let her down very gently and show that we still accept her for who she is."

Willow – "I don't."

Giles – "You think we should just cut it off cleanly?"

Willow – "No, I mean, I.. I.. I could learn some things off Buffy. Uh, not like that, I mean this could be useful for investigating and because it would keep her distracted while I.. I mean we, while WE investigate and, uh, it would be good for, um, keeping her, you know, on our side and-and not evil and stuff."

Willow gave Tara a "do you think they brought that?" look and Tara gave her back a look that said "I didn't even buy that!"

O-O-O-O

Buffy had taken Oz into the girl's locker room to talk.

Buffy – "Last night, something happened. It was unexpected and tempers are still hot from it but it happened and the important thing now is how we deal with it."

Oz squinted at Buffy – "What happened?"

Buffy – "Sometimes, in life, people become closer and last night, Willow and I .. got closer. A lot closer."

Oz's mouth fell open in shock.

Oz, accusingly – "You seduced her."

Buffy, completely without remorse – "That's right. I seduced her all night long."

Oz stared at her, caught between anger and disbelief.

Buffy – "But this morning all she talked about was you. Do you know how insulting that is? I did things to her you probably don't even know about and she's only worried about you. How you'd react, what you'll think, what you'll do. It seems she's really got a thing for you and it's something I can't touch. I might have her body but you've got her soul. So, to get to her, I need you."

Oz backed away from Buffy – "I-I'm not going to help you."

Buffy, stalking forward – "Yes, you will."

Oz backed himself into a line of lockers and Buffy pressed herself against him, trapping him place.

Buffy got comfortable in the position and smiled as Oz got increasingly uncomfortable.

Buffy – "Tell me, Oz. Do you know what love is?"

Oz, as if challenging her - "Do you?"

Buffy, easily - "Yes. You wouldn't think it but I do. It is how we love that defines us, don't you think?"

Oz – "I haven't really thought about it."

Buffy – "Well, you should. Do you think you're really loving Willow by keeping her away from me?"

Oz – "You're.."

Oz hesitated and Buffy nodded, already knowing what he wanted to say.

Buffy – "Yes, I'm evil. But I love. It's the only salvation I have. And you must realize that I do love Willow and I will never hurt her. I could never hurt her. If you hate me then I'll understand but please, think on my proposal if only for Willow's sake."

Oz – "What proposal?"

Buffy, with her hands creeping up Oz's back – "The one I'm going to give you. But first, I want you to forgive Willow for what happened. I want her to happy and for that she'll need your forgiveness. Your forgiveness for something completely out of her control."

Oz, trying to get free – "I'll need some time."

Buffy, laughing as she held him in place – "Oh come on. You can't seriously blame her. She's so young and impressionable. Then along comes a completely immoral and sexually savvy demon who knows all the right moves. She didn't stand a chance."

Oz did a half pout as he considered this and sighed in "I-guess-so" way.

Oz, as if reading from the phone book – "Now tell me about this proposal."

Buffy smiled widely – "The real lynchpin of this proposal is cooperation. Remember how they used to talk about that all the time on Sesame Street?"

O-O-O-O

Faith kicked Xander's bed – "Xander. Wake your lazy ass up. We've got guests."

Xander's eyes snapped and he covered his head with his hands as if to keep a helmet on. Once he realized that he wasn't under attack, he blinked his eyes a few times and stared in confusion at the silvery blue skinned demon girl Faith had tied to one of the support struts.

Xander – "Uh, Faith. What's that demon doing in my bedroom?"

Faith shrugged – "I don't know. I thought you might know."

Cordelia's tried to say something but it was muffled by the cloth gag Faith had given her.

Xander sighed and shook his head – "No. I don't know them. I don't know any demons."

Faith – "Really? The other Xander can't get enough of them."

Xander sighed again – "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Faith – "Hey, how about we play with her before we kill them?"

Xander blinked at Faith – "What! Faith. That's sick."

Faith chuckled – "I doubt she'll mind. If you were gonna die, wouldn't you want one last bang?"

Cordelia yelped in shock at Faith and Faith just chuckled.

Faith – "See. I think she likes that idea. Come on, X. Step up and perform."

Xander groaned as he looked around for some clothes – "Faith, what do you think I am? A trained seal?"

Faith smirked – "You like fish sticks a lot."

Xander – "Very funny. Besides, she's a demon. I don't have sex with demons."

Faith, cupping Cordelia's breasts – "Why not? I reckon she's hot."

Cordelia yelped again as Faith started tweaking her nipples, causing Xander to groan once more.

Xander – "Faith. Can you not do that? I know for a fact that you don't like that done to you."

Faith, tugging on Cordelia extra hard – "Yeah but she might."

By the angry look Cordelia gave the oblivious Faith, this wasn't the case.

Xander pulled on some pants and gave the demon another look, recognizing them for the first time.

Xander – "Oh, hey. I know you. You're that demon from the caves."

Cordelia nodded emphatically.

Faith – "Yeah. It's that demon. You only just figured that out?"

Xander pulled a commando style survival knife out from a bedside cupboard and his face turned cold and emotionless.

Xander – "And you tried to kill Cordelia."

Cordelia's eyes went wide and she shook her head in the negative even more emphatically but to no avail. Xander grabbed her hair and pulled back her head to slit her throat. It was only when his eyes met hers that he hesitated.

Her eyes were an unnatural fluorescent green color that seemed to almost glow but Xander saw something in them which he had never seen in an enemy.

Faith, at Xander's hesitation – "You're right. We should probably kill her outside so that we don't get blood all over the floor."

Xander, lowering the knife – "This doesn't make sense, does it? She tries to kill Cordelia, I kick her down a hole and she comes back for more? Well, actually, that does make sense but there's something about her that isn't right."

Faith – "You mean how she's hot?"

Xander, looking Cordelia up and down – "Now that you mention it, yeah, she IS hot for a demon."

Cordelia rolled her eyes and Xander frowned with a sense of undereducation. Obviously they'd need to talk to her to get her story.

Xander – "Okay, demon. I'm going to take the gag out but if you scream, I'll cut your voice box out. Do you understand?"

Cordelia nodded slowly and calmly so Xander removed the shirt Faith had somehow managed to shove in Cordelia's mouth. It was almost like one of those magician's tricks with the chain of handkerchiefs tied together.

Once the shirt was removed, Cordelia spat out more than just a few pieces of torn fabric. Seeing this, Xander held the shirt by the shoulders and realized that it was covered in bite marks from Cordelia's sharp saw like teeth.

Xander – "Oh, thanks a lot Faith."

Faith – "Hey, it's just a shirt. Not a very good one either."

Xander, insulted – "This is one of my favorite shirts."

Cordelia, with a bad case of dry mouth – "He wore it on the date when a werewolf attacked us. It's always held sentimental value for him. Personally, I never liked it."

Xander and Faith looked at the demon askew.

Faith confused – "You used to date?"

Now it was Cordelia's time to sigh – "This might come as a bit of a shock but I'm Cordelia. Cordelia Chase. The girl who you think is Cordelia is actually a demon who swapped bodies with me last night."

The vampires looked at her askew, again.

Faith – "I don't buy it."

Cordelia – "You don't buy it? Why not? It's the truth! And Xander, how long have you been screwing the hood rat?"

Xander – "It started today, not that it's any of your beeswax. I'm still skeptical you're Cordelia. You could just know a few things about me. Firstly, she wouldn't be caught dead in that dress. Sequins? I don't think so."

Cordelia – "Well, I'm sorry. I woke up in this at the bottom of a pit. I would've dressed up for my kidnapping but I left my master card in my other body."

Faith – "There's only really one way to tell if she's who she says she is."

Xander – "How?"

Faith – "Screw her. Then you'll know."

Xander, confused – "Huh?"

Faith – "You can always tell who someone is by what they're like in bed."

Cordelia – "Uh, no! That's not going to happen. Especially not with you watching. Besides, look at me. I'm in a gross demon body."

Xander – "Actually, it's really not that bad."

Cordelia – "Really?"

Xander – "Yeah, it's not that bad but it is kind of blue which has never been your color."

Cordelia gasped in shock at Xander's callousness – "Hey, you take that back. I can so do blue."

Xander – "Yup. It's Cordy. No demon could fake that fashion sense."

Faith pouted – "Well, you could still have sex. Come on. You know you want to."

Cordelia – "Guys, can we forget about sex for a moment and start thinking about the demon who stole my body? Who knows what she's doing right now in it. Who knows what she could be buying with my money! This could ruin my credit limit."

O-O-O-O

Willow came running through the school, calling out for Buffy.

Willow, nearly out of breath – "Buffy! Where the hell are you?"

Buffy and Oz came running around the corner, both having run at Willow's beck and call.

Buffy – "Willow, what's wrong?"

Willow – "It's Cordelia. She's been possessed."

Buffy and Oz both weren't expecting that.

Buffy – "I'm wondering. Is there is any difference between an evil Cordelia and one that isn't?"

Willow – "Buffy. I'm being serious. A demon swapped bodies with Cordelia and is walking around in her body. We've got to find her before she kills anyone and before they swap bodies again."

Oz – "Do we know where she is now?"

Willow shook her head – "All we know is she's not at home."

O-O-O-O

Dawn sat on the stairs of the Summer's household waiting for Buffy to come back home.

She had spent the night at Angel's but came back home after Faith dropped by. Dawn felt a little sullen that Buffy hadn't come to apologize in person. Not only had Faith only dropped by to find Spike but when she realized he wasn't home, she left without even saying goodbye.

It was like all the vampires she knew didn't have any manners.

Well, she'd give Buffy a piece of her mind when she came back and that would put that silly blonde in her place.

The doorbell rang at the door and Dawn bolted upright in fright.

Dawn, muttering under her breath – "Buffy wouldn't use the door bell."

Seeing as it wasn't her dreaded sire, she opened the front door to find Cordelia's face smiling at her.

The demon in Cordelia's body – "Hello. Is Buffy in?"

Dawn – "No, she's out. Everyone's out."

Cordelia – "Oh. Might I wait for them here?"

Dawn, moving aside to let Cordelia in – "Uh, sure. I guess."

Cordelia, crossing the threshold – "Tell me, what do you know about the key?"

Dawn frowned in confusion, not really getting the answer as she closed the door.

Dawn – "The key? What's that?"

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	42. 13f Cookie dough torture

Authors notes – Actually, I thought I had posted this up months ago. Apparently I didn't. Whoops.

O-O-O-O

An alarm went off in the kitchen and Dawn hurried off to deal with it. The body swapping demon in Cordelia body followed after her with a small impish smile.

Dawn waved smoke away from the smoke detector on the wall and quickly turned off the stove from where the smoke came.

Dawn, distracted with putting oven mitts on – "So what was the question again?"

Cordelia – "The key? What do you know about it?"

Dawn gave Cordelia a confused look for a second then bent over to pull a tray of blackened cookies out of the oven. The demon in Cordelias skin took the chance to check out Dawn's derriere and idly compare it to the Cordelias own.

Dawn, waving smoke away from the cookies – "Hey, they're better than the last batch I made."

Cordelia, frowning – "Okay, I'm a little confused. You're making cookies?"

Dawn, a little sheepishly – "Well, yeah. For Willow and Tara… to make up for last night… you don't know about that?"

By Cordelias blank look, Dawn guessed she didn't.

Dawn, visibly relieved – "Well, that's good. I don't really feel like talking about it right now. Hey, could you try one for me, just in case they're not suitable for human consumption. I'd do it myself but you know me and my vampire taste buds."

Cordelia picked up one of the still hot cookies and broke it in two. Although the outside layer was a charcoal, the inside was still cookie dough. She blew on one piece then carefully bit a piece off.

Dawn, wincing – "How is it?"

Cordelia – "I think the real question is what is it?"

Dawn – "Chocolate flavored peanut brownies. What do you think?"

Cordelia, sarcasm? – "They could do with some glazed cherries."

Dawn – "Oh! That's a great idea. I'll do that in the next batch."

Cordelia – "So, back to my question. This key, what do you know about it?"

Dawn shrugged as she started prying cookies off their hot plate with a spatula.

Cordelia sighed in disappointment and pulled one of Dawn's oven mitts off. Before Dawn could object, Cordelia pressed Dawn bodily against the kitchen counters and held a hand over Dawn's mouth to stop her from yelling out. With Cordelias other hand, the demon forced Dawn's unmitted hand onto one of the burning hot cookies.

Cordelia, with a wicked grin – "I hate to tell you this but your cookies suck."

O-O-O-O

The real Cordelia walked into the library in the body of a blue skinned demon. She had replaced the tattered silk dress with a baseball shirt, old blue jeans and sneakers which she had found in Xanders wardrobe.

Buffy, slightly cautious – "Cordelia?"

Xander nodded – "Yup. It's her."

Buffy seemed to accept this and looked Cordelia up and down.

Buffy – "Well, if we can't get you your old body back, that one looks good on you too."

Faith snorted out half a laugh – "That's what I said."

Giles, looking up from his books – "Excuse me but when did this happen?"

Cordelia – "Last night? Remember that crazy blue demon that came out of nowhere?"

Giles, shocked – "That was you?"

Cordelia – "No. That was them and a few seconds after that it was me getting kicked down a hole."

Buffy – "You'd think there'd be some sort of lightshow for magic like that."

Cordelia, sounding kinda peeved - "Well, there wasn't, okay? So how do we fix this? And I don't want to hear that it can't be fixed."

Giles, turning back to the book he was reading – "Uh, yes, it's reversible. We just need to understand what we're dealing with."

Cordelia – "So what's the problem with that? How many demons out there can hijack bodies?"

Faith – "Yeah, it's gotta be pretty rare."

Wesley made a small strangled like cough while Giles pulled his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Buffy, bringing bad news – "It turns out that there are thousands of demons who can possess humans."

Cordelia – "Well, duh! I knew that. I've seen Possessed. But this isn't possession. I'm in their body and they're in mine."

Wesley – "Which narrows the search considerably. But still, there are several entities which could be at fault."

Xander – "So you need to narrow the search more. What else would help?"

Wesley thoughtfully turned to Giles who had his own thoughtful face on.

Giles – "Cordelia, how do you feel at the moment?"

Cordelia – "Okay, I guess. A bit hungry though. I'm trying not to think of it though. I have no idea what this demon likes to eat."

Buffy, sniffing a little – "McNuggets, filet'o'fish and.. soft serve cones?"

Cordelia – "That doesn't sound bad but how would you know I can eat that?"

Buffy – "That's what I smell on your breath."

Giles and Wesley both gave each other blank stares.

Giles - "What self respecting demon eats McDonalds?"

Wesley – "Not only that but how would they order anything?"

Giles brushed a small pile of books aside – "Either way, I think we can safely assume that Cordelias thief isn't part of the renounced order of antimaterials."

Faith – "Demons can just order at the drive through at night. People around here have dirt poor night vision. They don't look twice at skin conditions like big blue here has."

Cordelia – "I hope you're not going to call me big blue from here on out."

Faith, ogling Cordelia's chest with an indulgent grin – "Well, you're not small blue."

Cordelia folded her arms and tried to ignore Faith while Buffy starting laughing.

Buffy – "Hey, I think she's blushing."

Xander, confused – "How can you tell?"

Buffy – "She's turning even bluer."

Willow joined in with a little laughing – "You know what this reminds me of? Veruca Salt in Charlie and the chocolate factory."

Despite her predicament, Cordelia saw the funny side and smiled a sheepish smile with contradictory sharp teeth.

Cordelia – "So how blue am I?"

Xander, trying not to laugh – "Pretty darn blue."

Cordelia – "I wish I could see, hey, does anyone have a mirror?"

To Cordelia's surprise, it wasn't Buffy who brought out a make up compact but Willow. Once Willow carefully handed it to Cordelia, she flicked it open and then stared in shock at what she saw.

Xander gently lowered the mirror, as if Cordelia might explode if he moved too fast.

Xander, trying to be comforting – "Cordelia, it's okay. It's temporary. We'll get it fixed soon."

Cordelia gave him a slight glare and looked back in the mirror. She held up a blue hand and slowly waved in front of the hand held mirror.

Cordelia – "Is it normal to see myself in a reflection?"

Buffy – "Unless you're a vampire."

Cordelia rolled her eyes at Buffy – "No. I mean, I see myself! But you guys see me as this demon."

Xander – "Maybe she's not a demon at all. That demon just stole her appearance."

Cordelia shook her head – "No, I normally can't climb up sheer cliffs like a gecko."

Xander blinked at her – "You can do that?"

Cordelia grinned – "Yeah, actually that's a plus. It turns out being demon isn't all bad"

Giles – "Excuse me but you say that your reflection is that of your own body?"

Cordelia nodded – "Is that important?"

Giles – "Actually it is. The reason that vampires lack reflections is that light is literally rebelling against them because they're essential unnatural and nature automatically fights against them. The fact that you still have your own reflection suggests that this demon is disturbing the natural course of life through his actions. Not only does that narrow our search, it means it should be very easy to perform a magical counteragent as nature would be on our side. Perhaps a simple argomatorum reversal should work."

Wesley, feeling slightly left out – "I was going to say that. Argomatorum reversal spell."

Buffy – "Okay, so you guys can handle the spell side, right? I'm going to check on the family and bring them all to the library. It might not be safe out there with evil Cordelia roaming the countryside."

Giles sighed – "Very well but go as a group. All of you go."

Buffy hesitated – "Are you sure? What if evil Cordy comes here?"

Giles – "I'm sure that between Wesley and I, we will be able to handle her."

Faith and Buffy shared a look of mild surprise between each other which turned into vampiresque smirks.

Faith – "Since when could our men look out for themselves?"

Buffy – "I dunno but I guess we should let them this time. We don't want to crush their egos in front of everyone."

Faith – "Yeah. Better to do it in private."

The two slayers turned to leave and as everyone followed suit, Faith wrapped an arm around Xanders shoulders in a possessive show which Buffy and Cordelia weren't very impressed by.

Although Buffy stopped herself from saying anything with Willow there, Faith knew she hit one of the blondes soft spots.

Faith, acting surprised – "What's wrong, B? You look like someone just ran over your cat."

Buffy tried to shrug her ire off – "Nothing's wrong, F."

That just made Faith smirk more. Buffy only used initials when she was angry at Faith.

Faith – "Oh, uh, I didn't say anything before but I borrowed your childe this morning. You don't mind, do you? I'll stop if you tell me to."

Buffy was about to tell Faith what she really thought but stopped when she reminded herself yet again that Willow was standing right next to her. Instead she just gulped and put on a slightly strained face.

Buffy, with a slightly strained voice – "No. I don't really care. Xander's a free man. He can make his own mistakes."

O-O-O-O

Dawn couldn't figure out how Cordelia was keeping her in place. She wasn't a strong vampire but she should be able to overpower a simple human. Her mind was clutching for anything that would get her out of this insane situation and struggling didn't seem to be working.

Dawn, pleading – "Please-please-I'll tell you anything, just don't, please."

Cordelia's mouth curled into a smile as tears rolled down from Dawn's yellow vampire eyes. They looked so delicious to the demon that she licked one of Dawn's tears up with her tongue and got a fresh whimper of revulsion from Dawn.

The demon in Cordelia – "All I want to know is where the key is?"

Dawn – "May-maybe if you told me what this key is for I could help you."

Cordelia's hand pulled Dawn's hand over the red hot element on the stove, causing Dawn to whimper in pain. The heat didn't seem to bother the demon though.

Cordelia – "Vampire's don't like heat. Isn't that right? It causes them to burst into flames. Do you want to do that? To burn up like a dry kindling? This can stop any time. Just tell me where the key is."

Dawn – "I told you, I don't know."

Cordelia, grinning – "Aww, that's too bad."

Dawn struggled to stop the demon from pressing her hand down.

Dawn – "Wait. I know where it is!"

The Demon let Dawn hold her hand away for a while, intent on pumping every bit of information she could out of Buffy's minion.

Cordelia – "Really? Pray tell, where is it?"

Dawn – "I take it you're not talking about an actual physical key, am I right? It's magic, isn't it?"

Cordelia paused in thought – "We know it's a person."

Dawn – "Oh, it's a person. That makes some more sense."

Cordelia – "Really?"

Dawn – "Well, yeah. I-I've been reading Buffy's diaries and she talks about things like this all the time."

Cordelia seemed a little disappointed.

Cordelia – "Uh huh. So you don't really know where the key is?"

Dawn sighed with relief for some odd reason and shook her head.

Dawn, chuckling – "Keys are the last thing you need to be thinking about right now."

Cordelia frowned as she heard a low, threatening growl coming from behind her.

She turned around to find Buffy in full game face, looking very pissed at her for torturing her childe.

Instead of being intimidated, Cordelia just smiled as she looked Buffy up and down.

Cordelia, letting Dawn go – "So you're Buffy? Your photos don't do you justice."

But Buffy wasn't in a punning mood. Instead she just lunged at Cordelia and was surprised to find that they had some super strength of their own. But the demon in Cordelia found herself quickly overpowered and Buffy tossed her hard to the ground.

Dawn backed off as both the fighters struggled around on the floor, rocking each other with punches and knees. Then before she realized what had really happened, Buffy had bit into Cordelias neck and their struggling turned into Cordelias death throes.

Dawn felt that she should be doing something to help but for the unlife of her she couldn't figure out what. Cordelia had just spent the last half an hour or so slowly torturing her but she knew what Buffy was doing just wasn't right.

Faster than Dawn thought would be possible, Cordelia was dead and Buffy slowly rose back to her feet with her back turned to Dawn.

Dawn, whining – "Oh god. You killed your friend. What are we going to do? Everyone will think you've gone evil."

Buffy didn't reply and Dawn felt that something wasn't quite right with her. So she gently reached out and touched Buffy on the shoulder.

In a flash, Buffy spun around and crushed Dawn against the wall with a blood filled kiss. Dawn was taken entirely off guard and wasn't in any condition to properly retaliate. Luckily for her, Buffy let her go and Dawn stumbled away from her in shock and horror as she tasted human blood for the first time.

Dawn – "Buffy, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Instead of replying, Buffy just laughed in an evil, maniacal way then jumped straight through a closed window out of the kitchen.

In the next second, the front door opened and the real Buffy walked in, only to followed by the rest of the Scoobys and a blue skinned demon.

So Dawn found herself standing next to Cordelia's drained body, with her game face on and human blood smeared over her mouth.

Dawn, wiping the blood off her mouth – "This isn't what it looks like. She attacked me."

But no one was really listening to her. They were vastly more interested in the dead body bleeding all over the kitchen tiles.

The real Cordelia – "Oh god. That's me! And I'm dead."

Dawn wasn't really sure what was going on but since no one wanted to kill her then she was happy to hang out in the background, wiping the blood of her tongue with a dishcloth.

Cordelia, wincing – "Am I really dead?"

Buffy nodded with a sad sort of pout – "Yup, you really are."

The only person who was keeping an eye on Dawn was Xander. Normally Dawn would enjoy this but he wasn't looking at her in the way she would've liked.

Xander - "Umm. Is she really Dawn?"

Willow, giving him her mirror compact – "She is. Take a look."

Xander flicked open the compact and checked out Dawn's reflection for himself.

Cordelia, mumbling – "I can't believe how pale I am. You wouldn't believe how much time I spent on tanning booths."

Faith – "Well, you were drained. It's a killer on the complexion."

Cordelia frowned – "Well, I'm sure the morticians deal with this sort of thing all the time. I'll make sure I get a good one."

Xander – "Mortician? Cordy, you mean you're going to give yourself a funeral?"

Cordelia – "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I? People will want closure."

Willow looked perturbed at that idea.

Willow – "Cordy, that's kind of wrong."

Cordelia blinked at Willow, not really understanding what she found wrong with it.

Dawn, too confused to stay quiet – "Uh, what's going on?"

Buffy – "It's okay, Dawn. A demon swapped bodies with Cordelia but hey, you killed her. Congrats. You finally did something, uh, half-right."

Dawn – "Uh, I didn't do it."

Buffy rolled her eyes – "I said it was okay."

Dawn – "Look, is someone going to tell me what's going on? Because I'm really starting to freak out."

Buffy's cell phone rang and she whipped out.

Buffy, to Dawn. – "Put a hold on that freak for a mo'."

Giles was on the other line with urgent news.

Giles – "Buffy, we think we've isolated the precise species of demon and according to this, it's imperative that we find Cordelia's body soon or we won't be able to reverse the spell."

Buffy – "Uh, hey Giles. Look, here's the thing. It looks like Cordelias blue period is going to be a bit permanent. Cordelias body is dead."

Giles, gravely – "Oh dear lord."

Buffy gulped – "Is that a good oh-dear-lord?"

Giles – "No, it isn't. It turned out that Cordelia was given a twenty four hour grace period to return to her original body. After that, not only would it be more difficult to pull off a body transference but if she spends too long in that demon form, she'll start acting like the demon which belongs to that body."

Buffy – "I still say it wouldn't be a big change."

Giles, not amused – "Buffy. This is serious. Cordelia is risking permanent mental damage if she stays in that body. I suggest you bring her back to the library right now so we can see what we can do to stave off Cordelia's descent into madness."

Dawn, not staying quiet – "Excuse me but how is that demon, Cordelia?"

Buffy sighed with impatience – "Hold on, Giles. Dawn, you killed a bodyswapping demon. It swapped bodies with Cordelia."

Dawn – "Uh, but I didn't kill her. Lambie did."

Dawn looked at the broken set of windows and frowned.

Dawn – "And then she started acting weird and jumped through the window."

Everyone turned quiet.

Buffy, quietly into her cellphone – "Hold on, Giles."

Buffy, to Dawn – "Dawn, what was Cordelia doing here?"

Dawn – "They tortured me with cookie dough."

Buffy was about to relay that but stopped herself and did a double-take at Dawn.

Dawn – "They wanted to know about someone called the key. Oh no. They must have done a body swap with Lambie and.. oh god."

Everyone looked down at the dead body with a new horrible understanding of what really conspired.

Buffy, into the phone – "Giles, Lambronazi is dead. They swapped bodies with her. So if you see someone who looks like me, shoot them."

Faith, showing something that looked suspiciously like fear – "Uh, if they swapped bodies with a slayer then .. would they be as kick ass as one?"

Dawn nodded – "Cordelia was really strong but she was just human… except for that whole demon thing."

Buffy – "Giles. Find the spell you need. We're still going to need it."

Giles – "But who for? Cordelias body is dead."

Buffy – "You might need it for me."

Then Buffy snapped the cell shut and jumped through the same hole the bodyswapper had jumped through.

Oz – "Why didn't she use the door? It's her own house."

Before anyone got a chance to answer, the corpse on floor sprung to life and everyone jumped back in fright instead.

Dawn, hopefully – "Lambie?"

The corpse looked in Dawns direction with hungry eyes.

Faith, with some laughter – "Oh snap! Lambies a vamp. When C's body died, she just brought it back to life. Sweet."

Lamb growled in her direction but didn't have the energy yet to do anymore.

Willow and Tara backed away from Cordelias now undead body when it looked in their direction.

Tara – "Dawnie, could you get some blood out of the fridge for Lambie? She looks hungry."

Dawn nodded with surprising bright smile for someone who had just been fed human blood.

O-O-O-O

Spike was lounging in the lounge room of Angels mansion nest when Angel came out of his bedroom. Angel looked tired and although he was wearing pants, he hadn't bothered to put on a shirt yet. It was obviously too early at night for shirt filled activities.

Spike was flicking through a TV guide and decided to talk to Angel in an idle fashion.

Spike – "Oh lookie lookie. Manchester is playing Arsenal on Tuesday night. Gotta watch that."

Angel's expressive brow pouted – "We don't have a TV."

Spike – "I'll get one. Although, cable might be a problem. Eh, I'll just go over to Joyces."

Spike put down the TV guide to smirk in Angel's direction.

Spike - "I don't know if I told you this but I think she's sweet on me. Along with everyone else in that household."

Angel – "Spike, stop stroking your ego. It's swollen enough already."

Spike kept smirking – "Nope, I'm pretty certain about this. The only x-factor would be Tara but she'll open up in time."

Angel - "Spike, something just occurred to me. I know that you can't kill me because Willow cursed you but what's stopping me from killing you?"

Spike – "Because then Buffy would kill you."

Angel barely flinched at that lie. This was an old game Angelus used to play with Spike and it seemed like Spike wanted a rematch. The rules were simple. The first one to lose their temper simply loses.

Angel – "Buffy wouldn't kill me. She might even congratulate me."

Spike – "You seem pretty sure about that."

Angel – "Because I am sure about it."

Spike – "Do you think you have some sort of hold over her because you're her sire?"

Angel – "It's more than that. She loves me."

Spike, sounding skeptical – "Rrrright. And yet, you don't do any of the things people in love do together, let alone any of the things sires do to their children. Hate to tell you this but I'm holding all the slack in both categories. I'm the one who makes her moan and I'm the one who spanks her when she's bad."

Angel's face tightened in barely restrained rage and Spike smiled with the small victory. But Angel was still holding himself back so Spike pushed it a little more.

Spike – "You might not know this but she really likes discipline. Whips, chains, paddles. That's her bag. Oh and you were right about her. She really does give great head. You know what the best part is? Looking down into those hazel eyes and only seeing love as I hump her tonsils."

This almost completely pushed Angel over the edge and Spike jumped off the sofa to face off with his sire. But something was still holding Angel back and Spike knew what it was.

Spike to Angel – "Still weak from your vacation in hell, huh? You're really taking your time getting better."

Angel – "Spike. I spent countless years being tortured in the most unimaginable ways in a hell dimension."

Spike – "And you're probably going to blame that one on me too. My advice is to get over it. Get on with your life."

Angel – "Like you?"

Spike frowned – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Angel – "You're getting on with your life?"

Spike – "Well, no. No, I'm not. I can't. If you'd remember, I've been spelled by that Willow bird. What I want to know is when did she come out of the closet with those wicca powers?"

Angel – "Probably around the time she gave me my soul back."

Spike snorted – "Yeah. Piece of bad timing that was. Still, I got the better half of her ugly stick. I've still got some dignity left, but you, you're just pathetic. Can't fight, can't bite and can't have fun."

Angel frowned – "Hold on. You can't bite either."

Spike – "I can when it's consensual. Buffy likes that too."

Angel winced. He knew for a fact that wasn't a lie and that was what really hurt him.

Spike – "So tell me, how are your physical therapy sessions going? How long is it gonna be until you're half way challenging in a fight?"

Angel sighed and started back to his room. Spike followed him, apparently with genuine interest in Angel's physical wellbeing.

Or maybe he didn't want to beat Angel up when Angel has any excuses for losing.

Angel – "Give me a month or so and I'll be in form."

Spike – "I'll mark it on my calendar."

Angel couldn't help but chuckle at that. It seemed that a bout of mutual pummeling was the only thing they wouldn't fight against.

Angel – "You know, I could always get you when you go to sleep. You've got to sleep sometime."

Angel – "That's true but I don't have to sleep here. I think I'll be pretty safe in Buffy's bed, wedged between Dawn and that cute mute of hers."

Spike wasn't even expecting the backhand that flipped up and bopped him on the nose. But Spike dodged the sloppy right hook Angel followed it up with. Spike countered with his own left hook that Angel also dodged.

Angel managed to grapple Spike from behind and as Spike struggled to get free they both fell into a wall. From the wall they fell down face first with Spike getting pinned underneath Angel.

While Spike tried to get out from underneath Angel, Angel tried to pull Spikes arm out from underneath him to get a better pin on the smaller vampire.

But Angel wasn't in the best condition and Spike had managed to get onto his knees just in time for a certain body swapping demon to come across the scene.

Both the vampires froze, almost as if they believed that by staying perfectly still that they would be invisible.

The demon in Lambronazi's body – "Don't mind me. Just keep doing whatever you were doing."

Angel, uncoupling himself from Spike – "Buffy. It's so not what it looks like."

Body swapping demon, with a pout – "Aww, I said don't stop. It was just getting interesting."

Angel turned to Spike – "Spike, I.. I need to talk to Buffy alone for a moment."

Spike thought about staying, just to annoy, but decided he didn't care for Angels alone time.

Angel – "Buffy, I.. uh, you've got blood on your shirt. No, wait, sorry. I can't get distracted. I really need to say this."

The body swapper looked at him blankly, almost innocently and waited for him to finish saying what he needed to say.

Angel – "I've been thinking about us and I'm leaving town."

Buffy's face barely changed and Angel decided to keep going until it sank in.

Angel – "I think it's best for everyone that I leave. We're not the same people we were when we met. Not after what we've done to each other. You and me, we can't just pick up where we left off. I know you still love me and I still love you and that's the problem. If I left then maybe you would have a shot at chance at happiness. Because we can't be together. Not again. Anything would be better than us together. So I think it's time we both moved on."

Angel realized that he had just been rattling off his thoughts in babbling type way and so he stopped and waited for Buffy's response.

But this Buffy didn't respond. Instead she looked slightly constipated.

Then she burst out laughing and Angel looked at her like she had gone completely insane.

Angel, visibly distraught – "Did.. did you hear what I said?"

The body swapper did her best to hold in her laughter to talk.

Body swapper – "Sorry. It's just you should have seen your face. It was hilarious."

Angel looked at her like she just grown another head.

Then another the real Buffy came out of nowhere and tackled them to the floor, totally surprising Angel.

The body swapper pushed Buffy off and Angel moved in to help.

Buffy – "No! Stay back, Angel. This bitch is mine."

Angel, keeping his distance – "What's going on?"

The body swapper was totally thrown by seeing another Buffy.

Body swapper – "What the hell? Since when did Buffy have an identical twin?"

Buffy with a grin – "For hundreds of years, apparently."

Body swapper, with a similar grin – "So how do you want to play this?"

Buffy's grin grew slightly bigger as she brought out a little mirror compact. She opened it up, took out pinch of golden powder and then blew it off her fingers. The golden powder dissipated without any apparent effect.

Body swapper – "Aaaand what did that do?"

Buffy, putting the compact back in her back pocket – "You should feel the effects soon."

The body swapper frowned and then realized that the room wasn't staying in focus properly. A few seconds later and she realized that it wasn't just her eyesight that was playing up.

Body swapper, sleepily – "What did you do?"

Buffy, similarly effect – "It's called calynthia powder. It's a hypnotic."

Body swapper, confused – "But you're not immune."

Buffy chuckled and shook her head, almost falling over as her balance faltered.

Buffy – "That's part of the plan."

The body swapper half growled, trying to summon the last vestiges of their anger.

Bodyswapper, plodding towards Buffy – "I'll keel you."

The bodyswapper kept plodding and slowly collided with Buffy. They both fell on the couch and it looked like they decided to get comfortable there.

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	43. 13g It's a girl thing

Author note – This is the last chapter I'm gonna write for this. Not that it hasn't been educational and good practice but it's not really what I want to do for the rest of my life, if you know what I mean.

O-O-O-O

About four minutes after Angel had called Giles, all of the scoobies arrived at the mansion to find Buffy and the demon inside Lambronazi making out on the couch.

Spike was leaning against the wall, watching the show with popcorn. What would normally be the most dangerous form of pea-knuckle had turned into a spectator sport.

Spike, offering some to Willow – "Pop corn?"

Willow, shocked at everyone's inaction – "Shouldn't we stop them?"

Giles, stopping her – "No!"

Giles hemmed and then spoke slightly more quietly.

Giles – "No. Buffy's has them, uh, distracted so we should take this opportunity to cast the spell for Lambronazi. I'm sure she wants her own body back."

Lambronazi, in Cordelia's body, didn't look too desperate to change back. Instead, she looked confused about what Buffy was doing with her body.

Lambie whispered to Dawn – "They're both girls."

Dawn nodded – "Yes. They are. Umm, I'll explain later."

Willow – "I don't get it. Why are they necking like that?"

Spike shrugged – "I haven't the foggiest. Peaches wouldn't explain but at least it makes for good viewing."

Giles, inquisitively – "Where is Angel anyway?"

Spike – "In his bedroom. Pansy boy decided not to watch. Too much excitement for him. He has a heart problem, you know."

Giles hemmed, catching Wesley's attention away from two blondes that were slowly tearing their clothes off.

Giles – "Let's do the spell. Xander, get ready to stake Cordelias body when the demon goes back into it."

Xander waggled his stake a few times to show that he was already ready for that.

Giles and Wesley each unfolded a book each and recited the spell they had decided on.

Giles and Wesley, in unison – "Ziremore argos ete shopocana est font roylont."

The two blondes on the couch started glowing along with Cordelia's body and the demon body which held Cordelias soul. Then the whole room was bathed in blinding white light.

When Xander held his stake up to Cordelia in the back, he hesitated, remembering that the demons body glowed too. Since he still had taken the time to find himself a small hand mirror, he held it up so he could see the reflection over his shoulder. In the place of the demon he saw an amorphous black cloud.

Without even turning, he swung his stake hand back and felt it drive home.

Then he turned around and saw that the demon was dead with his stake driven into its temple.

Xander – "Giles, will a stake to the head kill that demon for good?"

Giles, slightly hesitant – "Uh, yes, I believe it will."

Now that the demon was dead, it scaled skin started to melt and bubble and ooze into the floorboards.

Willow – "Uh, Xander. You're sure that wasn't Cordelia, right?"

Xander nodded and cringed as acrid blue smoke wafted up from the rapidly dissolving demon corpse.

Willow, with dread – "So Cordelia is.. "

Cordelia, cupping her breasts to check they're the right size – "Back! Oh yeah. I've got my body back!"

Willow – "Cordelia, are you okay?"

Cordelia nodded happily.

Cordelia, shamelessly sliding her hands over her body – "Oh yeah, I'm great."

Wesley, trying not to watch her too hard – "But you're currently a vampire."

Cordelia, not too worried – "Yeah, I am. It feels kinda strange being undead. Kinda tingly."

Giles – "Cordelia, for all we know, you won't be able to sustain your body now that it's dead."

Cordelia stopped her bodily exploration and looked at him somewhat seriously.

Cordelia – "What do you mean?"

Giles – "Well, you're not a demon. You won't be connected to any of the demonic energies needed to sustain your undead body."

Cordelia – "So what? You want me to connect to demonic energies? What does that involve? It doesn't hurt, does it?"

Giles frowned with undereducation and Wesley looked even more out of his depth than the older watcher.

Dawn, whining as she tried to pull Buffy off from Lambie – "Hey! Can someone help me out here?"

Xander and Oz helped Dawn pull Buffy off the overwhelmed Lambie. Once they did, Buffy seemed to get some of her self control back.

Buffy, with messed up hair – "Okay, I'm okay now. You can let me go."

They did so and Buffy patted down her hair while Lambie sat up on the couch with a stunned look.

Dawn, sheltering Lambie under her wing – "What did you do to her?"

Buffy, somewhat breathlessly – "Calynthia powder."

Dawn groaned – "Aww, not that."

Buffy – "I've got the antidote at home."

Dawn, angrily – "You didn't bring it with you?"

Buffy – "Sorry. I was in a hurry. Umm, Oz, could you give me a lift home? I don't think I can make it on foot."

Oz – "Sure. My van's out on the street. I'll bring it into the driveway."

With that said, Oz left to valet his van.

Giles – "Dawn, perhaps it would be best if we kept Buffy and Lambie separate for tonight. Would you mind helping me with her?"

Dawn nodded and picked up Lambie, almost falling over under their weight.

Faith, as Giles left with the younger vampires – "Dawn really is the worst vampire ever."

Tara, wincing at Dawn stumbling under Lamb's weight – "I'll help her."

Tara followed Dawn and Giles out of the room.

Willow, to Cordelia – "Are you sure you're okay?"

Cordelia – "Yes. I'm fine. Really."

Willow – "Wesley, do you know how long Cordelia can stay like this?"

Wesley – "Uh, I'm not really sure but I think she should be safe for a day or so."

Cordelia – "See, Willow. No problem. Now where's the blood cos I'm starving."

Willow and Xander blinked at Cordelia in shock. Wesley didn't seem to catch what she said.

Cordelia – "What?! I'm a vampire and I'm hungry. What else am I supposed to eat?"

Xander, clearly disturbed by his ex – "You actually want to drink blood?"

Cordelia – "It's just food for vampires. And what are you gawking at me for? You've been feeding off Buffy for the past month."

This got Buffy a few silly giggles out of Buffy, who had draped herself across Xander.

Cordelia growled at Buffy without really noticing and turned to Spike.

Cordelia, to Spike – "Hey, you, guy that's so important I can't remember his name, get me some blood."

Spike looked at her like she had suddenly popped a fresh deathwish but didn't say anything.

Willow – "Spike, would you help out?"

Spike sighed and decided he'd better obey before Willow officially ordered him to. Luckily for him, blood was close at hand. He just reached into the chilli bin and pulled out a plastic container full of blood, which he then roughly handed to Cordelia.

Cordelia pulled the lid off, sniffed a few times and took a test sip. Then she tipped it back and drank the contents without even stopping to breathe. Once she was finished the others waited to see if she'd throw it back up.

Cordelia, pleasantly surprised – "Hey, that's not bad. I thought it'd taste gross. You know, like blood."

Spike, slightly disgusted – "It does taste gross. That's pig's blood."

Cordelia – "That explains why it's got that bacon aftertaste."

Buffy – "I always preferred cow but lamb is good too."

Cordelia, interested – "What about chicken?"

Buffy – "It gets old quick."

Faith – "Hey, I like chicken."

Buffy – "People are nice too."

Everyone looked at Buffy, who apparently didn't remember that she wasn't supposed to talk about eating people.

Faith, curious – "B, are you high?"

Buffy – "Wha? No. Not much. Why?"

Willow, explaining – "Calynthia powder is a hypnotic."

Faith – "So she's hypnotized?"

Willow, not entirely sure – "I don't think so. But we should get her home."

Faith – "Whoa, hold on. This could be fun. Let's ask her stuff and see what she says."

Willow, not getting it – "Stuff like what?"

Faith – "I dunno. How about, B, were you jealous that I slept with Xander?"

Buffy, laughing about it – "Oh yeah, I wanted to rip your head off."

Faith – "I knew it! And you were only holding it in cos your precious Willow was there."

Buffy nodded happily.

Xander – "Oh-kay, she's hypnotized. Why don't you take her home on now? Before she blurts out anything else?"

Cordelia, squinting at Xander – "Like what? What else would she blurt out?"

Xander, defensively – "Nothing. I'm just saying that she's in a vulnerable position and we shouldn't exploit it."

Spike – "Now don't be rash. This has some promise. Buffy, when you were still human and we were fighting to the death, were you pitching a tent in your pants?"

Buffy chuckled as she remembered – "Oh yeah. You were so sexy."

Xander, off loading Buffy to Willow – "Yup, that's disturbing. It's really time for you to get her the hell out of here."

Cordelia – "Buffy, what is it Xander doesn't want us to know?"

Buffy's shrugged with her face as she innocently started feeling up Willow. In the background, Oz tooted his horn.

Willow, trying to extract Buffys hands from unsuitable places – "Xander's right. Let's get you home. Cordy, are you sure you'll be okay?"

Cordelia nodded – "Yes. Go!"

Willow put on a regretful face, not really wanting to leave Cordelia there but did her duty and helped support Buffy as she walked outside to Oz's van.

Wesley, sounding almost hopeful – "Miss Chase, I could take you home if you want."

Cordelia gave him a charitable smile – "No thanks. I'll just hang around here for a while and soak up the ambience."

Wesley nodded in that awkward, uncomfortable way of his and silently turned and left.

Faith, to Cordelia – "Oh, hey, Legs, there's something you need to know about the whole vampire deal so umm, could we talk somewhere private? It's a girl thing."

Xander – "There's a girl thing? Is it like my guy thing?"

Cordelia, confused – "Your guy thing? What guy thing?"

Faith – "You don't know about his guy thing? Oh man. I thought you'd be the first one he told."

Cordelia – "I think I'd remember him telling me about his guy thing."

Faith took Cordelia by the arm and somewhat roughly lead her away into another room while Xander stayed behind, looking a little left out.

Cordelia, in the new room – "So what's this girl thing?"

Faith, moving closer to Cordelia – "It's um…"

Faith put on a slightly thoughtful face then smiled while Cordelia frowned.

Faith – "Can you put on a vampire face?"

Cordelia – "Urm, I don't know. How do you do that?"

Faith – "Just get angry and it'll turn on."

Cordelia tried and put on a constipated face in effort but to no avail.

Cordelia – "I don't think I can do it."

Faith – "Well, there is one trick we could try."

Cordelia – "What's that?"

Faith slapped Cordelia across the cheek. After the initial shock, Cordelia gave Faith some top grade dagger eyes and then gasped as her game face morphed on.

Cordelia, touching her face with wonder – "Oh. I just did it. Didn't I? Ow, Faith. That kinda hurt. How bad does it look?"

Faith touching Cordelias face too – "Looks hot. I guess you've still got a little left over lamb in you. Hmm, I wonder what other vamp bits you've got under the hood."

Cordelia grinned and found herself pressing her head into Faith's hands. As soon as she realized what she was doing, she stopped in confusion. Faith didn't stop exploring Cordelias new features though and let her hands move from the taller girls face into her hair and over her shoulders.

Cordelia confusion grew even more as she didn't immediately bat Faith's hands away as they slid down her body. Faiths hands kept roaming and one eventually found their way under Cordelias skirt. Cordelia let out a long husky moan as Faith worked some fingers into somewhere Cordelia wasn't used to having fingers at all.

Cordelias head slowly drooped down onto Faiths shoulders as Faith held her up.

Cordelia, out of breath – "Oh god. Muh-my ass."

Faith, deviously – "That's right, your ass."

Cordelia – "That feels amazing. Oh, it's so good."

Faith, with humor – "Really? It's not really my thing."

Cordelia growled a little and grabbed Faith's mouth by the dimples. Faith just kept smiling a squished smile though.

Cordelia, as Faith kept working her – "This is so weird."

Faith didn't reply as Cordelia forcibly kissed her, as if trying to stifle her own screams. After Cordelia let up on Faith, she still hadn't stopped enjoying what Faith was doing to her.

Faith – "So you really like this?"

Cordelia – "Oh yeah."

Faith – "How about we get something bigger in you then. XANDER!"

After a few seconds, the door opened and an unsuspecting Xander stared in shock as he saw Faith pleasure his ex girlfriend.

Cordelia looked over to Xander and didn't feel the slightest bit of embarrassment in the situation, which was definitely different for her.

Cordelia, giggling – "Xander. Why don't you fuck my ass?"

Xander, as if he didn't hear her right – "What?"

Faith pushed Cordelia backwards and she flopped onto the bed with a bounce. Then Faith pushed Xander by the ass and all but threw him on top of Cordelia. He fell forwards onto the bed and when he tried to get off again, Faith held him down from behind while Cordelia pulled him down from in front.

Xander, a little scared – "Uh, Cordy, I don't know what's going on so – mmmfmmuh"

Cordelia silenced him by kissing him and knocking his arms out so he fell into her arms.

Cordelia, grabbing Xanders righteous hard on through his pants – "Xander. Just shut up and fuck me."

Xander, not really in the mood to argue anymore – "Uh, okay. I can do that."

O-O-O-O

It was some time later when Faith woke and decided to stretch her legs on the mansions front lawn. The sun had almost risen up once again, coloring the sky vanilla. Once out the front door, she found Buffy and Angel talking in that intimate way they did. Upon spotting Faith, they both turned to her.

Faith, awkwardly – "Oh hey, hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Buffy gave Faith a warm smile and shook her head.

Buffy – "Nah, we were just chatting."

Faith nodded slightly with her own warmish smile which turned into curiosity when she found Ozs van still parked in the driveway.

Faith, smirking – "So Red and the werewolf, huh? They didn't stand a chance, did they? Didn't even make it out of the driveway. Hope you didn't hurt them too bad."

Buffy smirked back – "They've both still got pulses. So how was Cordelia?"

Faith frowned with some confusion – "Uh, great but how did you know? Did Angel tell you? Was he watching again?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow up at Angel for a second but shook her head – "Nah, you're just wearing that smile you always get after group sex. Since I doubt you got Spike and Xander in the same bed and since Angel isn't acting overly guilty, I took a leap of .. logic and guessed you got Cordelia into team sports."

Faith shrugged and frowned a little – "Well, the girl's hot but I'm not sure threesomes are her thing."

Angel, wincing – "Humans don't really enjoy that sort of thing."

Buffy, with a titter – "That's funny coming from you."

Angel, frowning – "What's that supposed to mean?"

Buffy – "I guess you don't remember but I kinda dropped in on you back when you were still human."

Angel's mouth fell open and Faith chuckled meanly.

Faith – "Oh man. You boinked Angel when he was human?"

Buffy, trying to downplay it and failing with a smile – "Just a few times."

Angel, dumbfounded – "I-I, no you didn't!"

Buffy – "Yeah, I did. Though, you were so drunk that you obviously forgot. You used to drink a lot back then."

Faith – "Damn, B, you're a riot."

Buffy – "I am, aren't I."

Angel, a little distracted – "Uh, Buffy, about what I was saying before – "

Buffy stopped him by placing a hand on his chest and an almost motherly look into his eyes.

Buffy – "Angel. Don't worry yourself about it. There's no drawback to having you around. I know I'm not the Buffy you fell in love with but I love you. I want you around, even though it hurts that I can't love you… physically. Plus, I don't think the real Buffy would want you to leave either. She wouldn't want you alone and she wouldn't blame you for what happened. I'm sure she'd be disgusted by some of the things I've done since I was turned –"

Faith, interrupting Buffy – "Yeah, like Willow."

Buffy, chuckling – "Oh yeah, like Willow. The old me would go ape shit over that."

Buffy, turning back to Angel – "I know she'd be horrified about Willow. But I don't think she'd hate me and I know she'd still love you. And if you're worried about me here, don't be. I'll be fine. I'm happy. I've moved on. I've moved on with Willow, which is, just kinda weird. But I've moved on. In fact, I moved on a while back. So don't worry yourself, get some rest and drink lots of cow to get your strength back. After you're back on top, if you really want to leave, I won't stop you. I don't think it's a smart idea but I still won't stop you."

Angel nodded, sighed slightly and then plodded off, back into the mansion, leaving Buffy alone to only her thoughts and Faith.

After Angel left, Faith slinked over to Buffy and put on a devious smile.

Faith – "Soooo who are we gonna initiate next?"

Buffy, easily – "What about Wesley? You're already screwing him and I think he likes Cordy. Cordy plus Wesley plus you equals fun."

Faith put on a thoughtful face – "Yeah. We could do Wesley but that'd be too easy. We could do him any time."

Buffy gave Faith a sly smirk – "Oh, I get it. You want my help with Tara?"

Faith, sort of whiny – "She's a tough nut to crack and I can't make budge her an inch."

Buffy, smoothing Faiths hair – "Don't worry, Faith. Have a little patience and I'm sure she'll see things our way soon enough. Might even get Willow to help me. Will's got a thing for blondes."

Faith, pouty – "I don't want to show any patience. I want her now."

Buffy, moving in to kiss Faith – "Ooh, poor baby."

And they kissed, easily and comfortably but Faith growled when Buffy broke it off.

Buffy – "But until Tara plays along, you'll have Cordelia to play with. That'll be nice, won't it?"

Faith's pout turned into a silly smile – "Yeah. I guess."

Buffy, slapping Faith on the butt – "Good girl. Now I'm gonna go drive the humans home. They're gonna starving when they wake up. I gave them both a work out."

Faith, growling appreciably – "Really? Think they'll be ready for another one?"

Buffy shook her head – "No. Baby steps, Faith. They're not ready for you yet."

Faith – "Smoother talker."

Buffy, getting into the van – "That's me. See ya later, alligator."

Faith didn't bother replying as Buffy started up the van and drove off. As she did, Cordelia wandered out the front door for a breather. As she did, she found Faith looking her up and down.

Cordelia, gulping – "Uh, hello, uh, Faith."

Faith smirked back – "Hey legs. Sleep well?"

Cordelia nodded, obviously still a little traumatized from the night before.

Faith, pointing upwards to the sky – "Sun's almost up. We should get back inside until B inks some of those sun screen chicken scratchings on your ass."

Cordelia blinked and squinted upwards. The top tips of the trees were glowing with sunlight now.

Faith, inching towards Cordelia – "That's right. Looks like you'll be stuck at the mansion today. It's sad but whatcha gonna do?"

Cordelia – "Look, Faith, about last night… uh…"

Faith – "You didn't like it?"

Cordelia – "It's not that. It's just, I don't really like girls."

Faith, smirking – "You liked me well enough last night."

Cordelia – "About that, my head must have been in a weird place cos ahh!"

Cordelia had yelped cos Faith had grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. Now the two brunettes were pressed together with Cordelias bust at Faith's eye level which was something Faith didn't mind at all.

Faith – "C, I thought you would've figured out the girl thing by now. It's like this. I'm hot, you're hot, we're vampires so it doesn't matter that we're girls. You got that?"

Cordelia was about to object until Faith buried her face in the V of the taller girls top. Cordelia gasped but found her hands holding Faiths head close instead of pushing her away. The same strange emotions flooded back into Cordelia as they did last night as Faith lapped hungrily. Eventually Cordelia just rolled her eyes and growled in defeat.

Cordelia – "Faith, you really are a bitch… but don't stop."

Faith just sniggered with her face full of titties.

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

And coincidently, the end of the last fanfic I'll probably ever write.

Hope you all enjoyed it.


	44. 14a Willow loves backups

Authors notes -  
I actually thought I lost all this. That's partially why I decided to give up fanfiction. But hey, I had it backed up and only just realised it.

So here it is, an entirely new episode in a long running fanfic. Hope you guys like.

Will put up a few more chapters after I proofread them a little.

O-O-O-O

The mayor was idly busy cataloguing his rolodex when the doors into his office opened up and a small crowd of darkly cloaked individuals.

Mayor pushed the intercom to talk to his secretary.

Mayor - "Gladis, I don't remember scheduling a meeting."

A strangely perky and familiar female voice - "I'm sorry. We killed your receptionist."

The mayor looked up from his intercom and found himself faced with Buffy, who removed the hood of her cloak. Around her, demons removed their hoods too, to reveal a variety of masks which concealed their true face.

The Mayor was really unsure what to do about this intrusion.

Buffy - "Now we're gonna kill you."

Mayor - "Wait, you're behind the face eaters?"

Buffy scrunched her nose up in a cute way - "Umm, not exactly. The person I work for is behind the face eaters. Which is why I'm here."

Mayor, clearly confused - "I don't - I don't understand."

Buffy - "Then I'll make it clear for you. All he asked is complete and utter devotion. You haven't delivered. So we will force you to be completely and utterly devoted."

Buffy, turning to a face eater - "Turn him and make it painful."

One of the demons carefully removed his mask to reveal an absurdly large lamprey like mouth where it's face should be.

As the Mayor tried to get away, Buffy wore a strangely satisfied smile.

O-O-O-O

It was a dark, creepy, moonless night in one of Sunnydale's many graveyards. It was eerily quiet as a vampire broke up out of his grave, his hands searching upwards for an unsuspecting world.

Xander - "Here, let me give you a hand."

Xander lent over and grabbed the vampire by the wrist and pulled, getting the vampire out of the grave in record time. He seemed a little disorientated at first but then smiled.

Anonymous vampire - "Hey, thanks."

Xander, with a bright smile - "Welcome."

Cordelia frowned and fussed as she brushed dirt off the vampires shoulders then she tilted her head curiously.

Cordelia - "Hey, is that a real Rolex?"

The vampire looked down at his watch and frowned, not remembering wearing that watch when he died.

Vampire - "Yeah. You think I'd be buried in a cheap counterfeit? Only the best for me, girl."

Cordelia nodded - "Cool. Umm. I know this is a weird thing to ask but could you take it off? I've just got this bet with this other evil fiend about what people get buried in and I'd like a closer look at your watch."

The vampire shrugged, took his watch off, gave it to Cordelia then gasped and turned to dust as Xander staked him in the back.

Faith and Wesley came out of the bushes, Faith smiling while Wesley didn't look too pleased.

Faith - "Good work team. By my count, we're beating Buffys team by two watches."

Wesley - "I don't really see why I have to be here."

Faith - "I told you, you're the guy who keeps it fair. You're the umpire."

Wesley - "I get that. I just don't get why you would cheat at this."

Cordelia chuckled - "Faith, you didn't tell him what you and Buffy were betting?"

Faith - "Nah. I wanted it to be a surprise."

Xander - "Wait, what are we betting? It better not be me."

Faith grinned - "Nah. It's not you, Xander. See, if I win, I get to turn Dawn. If Buffy wins, she gets to sleep with Tara."

Wesley and Xander gave her a disturbed look. Cordelia just rolled her eyes.

Xander - "I get the impression Dawn doesn't want to get necky with you."

Faith smirked - "Well, I guess we'll find out when I win this bet."

Faith's pager buzzed a little as it vibrated and she took it off her belt to read it.

Faith - "Huh. Buffy sent me one of those number codes. I can never remember what those things mean. Xander, what's code 13?"

Cordelia chuckled - "I know what it is. Everyone crouch down a little."

As everyone crouched a little, Cordelia snuck to the left a little. They stayed like that for a while. Faith, Wesley and Xander gave themselves looks as none of them had a clue what Cordelia knew.

Then they heard someone running towards them.

Then Cordelia swung her arm out and brutally closelined a vampire as he ran by her hiding place. It skidded along the cemetary grass for a few feet then righted itself back up and growled at Cordelia.

Grubby vampire, growling - "Slayer!"

Cordelia glared at him - "Do I look like a slayer? No! I'm way too tall to be a slayer."

The vampire gave her a confused look and Faith staked him in the back.

Faith, deadpan - "Hah ha. Nice closeline, legs."

Wesley agreed - "Yes, that was a smashing move. It seems you've really acclimatized well into .."

Wesley looked down at Faith who shrugged.

Faith, guessing - "Vampirehood?"

Wesley frowned then smiled - "You've really acclimatized well."

Cordelia smirked - "Thanks. It was tough at first but it's definitely got its perks. No more running away like a little girl for me. I can take anything on now."

Faith hemmed and smirked.

Cordelia - "I wasn't counting you, Faith."

Buffy, in good nature - "Were you counting me though?"

Buffy came into the scene with Giles, Lambronazi, Willow and Spike in tow.

Cordelia - "No but I might be able to take Spike."

Spike didn't humor her with a response.

Faith - "So what was with the page? Did the radios break again?"

Buffy shook her head - "I forgot to replace the batteries. Sorry guys."

Faith, couldn't help but chuckle - "Not your night. So how many watches tonight?"

Buffy frowned - "Only two. I don't get it. It's not like watches ever go out of fashion."

Faith, triumphantly - "Hell yeah. We got five! Man, it's gonna be so good when I win. I'm gonna turn Dawn like five times or something. She'll probably let me play dress up with her after that too, which'll be fun."

Buffy - "Uh, whoa, wait. When we were talking about making a bet, you know I wasn't serious. Right?"

Faith, scandalized - "You bitch. You're only saying that cos you're losing."

Buffy, shaking her head - "No, it's not that. I thought you were playing around. You actually want to turn Dawn? Really?"

Faith - "Like you don't want to sleep with Tara."

Xander - "Excuse me but don't Dawn and Tara get any say in this? And why would you want to turn Dawn?"

Faith - "It's got nothing to do with Dawn. It's just cos I've never done it before. I can't do it to you, X, cos you've got no stomach for it. Cordelia's off limits too because she's supposed to still be human. I can't resire Spike or Angel cos they're old fogeys. That goes for Buffy and Lambie too. Lambie.. well, maybe not but she probably wouldn't like it."

Lambie seemed to consider this.

Faith - "So that just leaves Dawn. Knowing that little nut, she'll love it."

Faith licked her lips and moved closer to Buffy.

Faith, a bit too close for comfort. - "Besides, it's not like I haven't tasted her before. She tastes like maple syrup."

Buffy growled a little and backed off a bit, leaving Faith grinning a small smile of victory.

Gile - "And on that note, let's wrap tonight up. Is there anything of actual importance anyone wants to mention?"

Xander - "It's been quiet. Nothing's happening. We've found nothing more on the evil giant cockroach front."

Willow, feeling a bit useless - "I guess that's it for the night. See you later, Spike."

Spike, grumbling - "Bout time."

With that, Spike stalked off to the mansion as he was free of Willow's command for the night.

Giles, following Spike - "I'm off too. I take it you can all find your own way home. Goodnight."

Willow, with a small wave that Giles didn't see - "Night Giles. Night Wesley."

At the mention of Wesley's name, Faith turned around and saw Wesley running stealthily after Giles and Spike on their way out of the cemetary.

Faith, frowning - "Where does he think he's going?"

Cordelia - "Huh?"

Faith - "Uh, nothing."

Disappointed even more, Faith turned to Buffy and gave her some dagger eyes as the scoobies started making their own way out of the cemetary.

Faith - "I know if I was losing, this bet would still be on."

Buffy - "It's not a bet. It was never a bet. I like how my family is at the moment. I wouldn't want to change that."

Faith - "And you don't want to sleep with Tara?"

Buffy, tilting her head towards Willow - "I'm sort of, ahem, taken at the moment."

Faith - "Hey, we never said anything about sex. We're talking about sleep and Tara is the nicest thing when it comes to beds."

Cordelia scrunched her nose up - "Really? How?"

Faith grinned - "She's like a big electric blanket. You can bunk with me tonight if you want and find out how. I'm sure Tara won't mind."

Buffy - "But I don't need to steal Tara if I want a warm body in bed with me. And you, stop grinning like that."

Lambie tried to stop grinning like an idiot, eventually looking away.

Faith - "See, Lambie likes that idea a lot. Shows she has better taste than Buffy."

Buffy - "Still, there was no bet. Alright? I'd never put Dawn through something like that and I would've thought you wouldn't put Tara through something like that either. They've got, what are those things? Rights."

Faith frowned - "Yeah, whatever."

O-O-O-O

Giles and Wesley were crammed into an absurdly small car, driving back to Wesley's lodging.

The light went red and Giles stopped at some lights. There were no other cars around.

Without warning, someone tapped on the passenger side window.

Wesley looked up at the fellow as he made a wind-down motion with his hand.

Wesley - "I say, how did you get here so fast? Were you running after us? Has something happened?"

Xander, with his leather gloved hands on the window frame of the door - "You could say that."

Then Xander, with a somewhat incredible show of strength, tore the door off its hinges as he lifted the car off the ground and turned the car sideways so it hit a brick wall front first.

While the occupants of the car were a little dazed, Xander reached in and pulled them out. Once out of the car, he held them by the back of their necks and forced them to walk.

By now, Giles noticed that there were actually quite a large number of demons and vampires in the street. None of them seemed to be too interested in him though.

Xander - "Stop struggling or I'll break your neck. This way."

He had them walk across the street. He kicked in a door and pushed them through it. Then he closed the door behind him and put a finger to his mouth, asking for quiet.

This was the Xander from the future, the Xander with an eyepatch.

Xander, almost conversationally - "Hey, Giles. What are you doing on the street? You do know that Sunnydale is now swarming with demons, right?"

Giles and Wesley shared a look.

Wesley, as if just fitting it together - "Oh, that's the Xander I read about. Uh, you don't know me so I guess I should introduce - "

Xander, snapping - "Wesley, shut up. Giles, please tell me you know about the bounty."

Giles - "Bounty? What bounty?"

Xander groaned into his hands - "This is so typical. Look, there's a bounty on Buffy's head. It's gotten a surprising amount of publicity. It's one million dollars, just so you know. Do you know what demons will do for that sort of money?"

Giles - "One million dollars? Xander, why didn't you warn us earlier? Why didn't you call?"

Xander - "I couldn't. The phones were out."

Giles frowned - "So, who set this bounty?"

Xander shrugged - "Wish I knew. It doesn't seem to be any of the big bads I know about. Or have heard about. Whoever they are, they're serious and they actually have the million dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. I could literally smell it. It was real money and a lot of the guys out there did too. There's a bonus for killing her friends too, so you two need to stay out of sight. If anyone realizes who you are, you're dead."

Xander turned around, opened the door and started to go through it. Then he paused.

Xander, over his shoulder - "Stay here till it's clear."

Then he left the two watchers, alone and weaponless in an abandoned factory of some description.

O-O-O-O

Cordelia lingered a little as she and Xander finally arrived at the foot of her driveway.

Cordelia, lingeringly - "It's such a beautiful night. Seems a waste not to stay up longer. Why don't you follow me in?"

Xander frowned - "Look, Cordelia, I like you. I really do but -"

Cordelia stopped him by placing a firm finger over his mouth.

Cordelia - "I get the whole you're-not-Xander part. Let's just have some sex and not make a big deal out of it, okay? I want it, you want it and we can't have it with anyone who doesn't know we're vampires because it would raise too many questions about body heat. Consider it a thank you for walking me home."

Xander seemed to think about it then he looked over Cordelia's shoulder, suddenly much more alert.

Cordelia followed his gaze and saw a small horde of vampires ambling down the street towards them. More were coming towards them in the other direction too. Some vampires were making their way in between houses and some appeared on Cordelia's front lawn.

They were surrounded.

Xander - "Ahh. Monkey poop."

O-O-O-O

Wesley frowned as he checked his cellphone - "Hold on, the cell towers aren't out. It must just be the land lines."

Giles - "Huh?"

O-O-O-O

Faith held a cellphone to her ear in the Summer's kitchen.

Faith, speaking into her cellphone - "Wesley, calm down and say it slower."

Wesley, through his cellphone and into her ear - "There is a million dollar bounty on Buffy's head."

Faith - "Let me get this straight. If I kill Buffy, you'll give me a million dollars?"

Buffy frowned at Faith as she said that.

Wesley - "No. Not me. Someone else. There are lots of demons coming to kill her. They'll try to kill you too. Don't let them."

Faith - "Oh. Right. Is that all?"

Wesley - "Umm. They seem to be on our side of town for the moment. You should probably go before they get to your side."

Faith - "Yeah. Thanks for the call."

Then she hung up, with Willow waiting expectantly.

Faith - "Demons are coming to kill Buffy. There's a big cash prize so there's lots of them. Let's go kill them first."

Buffy, nodding as she went into planning mode - "Lamb, Will, you stay here and arm up."

Buffy walked out into the hallway as Faith slammed back a glass of blood.

Buffy, shouting upstairs - "Dawn! Untie Tara from the bed! We might have some trouble tonight! Get ready!"

Faith snorted a little as she tried to imagine Dawn tying Tara to a bed.

Buffy picked up a nice shiny sword and gave Faith a grin.

Buffy - "You ready?"

Faith - "Born ready. Let's kick some ass."

Willow - "Buffy, uh.."

Willow didn't know what to say, feeling that tonight might just be the toughest night Buffy had ever faced. Buffy let down her stoic guard down as she looked Willow in the eye. Then she moved closer and kissed Willow with a full, sensual but surprisingly gentle kiss, as Lambie, Faith and Joyce watched. When Buffy broke off, Willow stumbled back a bit, a little dazed.

Joyce, chuckling a little - "Do they do that a lot? Because that is really strange."

Faith, grimly - "Yes, they do that a lot."

Buffy, picking her sword up again - "Willow. Don't worry. I've got a plan."

Willow - "Yuh. Okay. Have fun."

No more words were spoken as Buffy and Faith made their way out into the night, no doubt to fight against desperate odds.

Then Dawn appeared at the top of the stairs, her feet thumping on the floor as she stopped. For some reason, she was in a dressing gown.

Dawn, a little frantic - "Did.. Who just left?"

Willow, much slower - "Buffy and Faith. Why?"

Dawn paused, not sure how to answer.

Dawn, very quickly - "No reason."

Then she darted back into her room.

Willow frowned while Joyce already seemed to know what was going on.

Willow, trying to piece the weird behavior together - "Where's Tara?"

Joyce, with a grin - "Upstairs."

There was a funny sound from upstairs.

Willow - "Upstairs with Dawn?"

Joyce nodded, still grinning - "Yes, upstairs with Dawn."

Willow's mouth opened as a weird idea occurred to her.

Willow - "You don't mean, upstairs WITH dawn, do you? I mean, they're not."

Joyce nodded with a grin - "Yes. Don't tell Faith. She'll just complicate things. Coffee?"

Willow - "Uh. Sure. Why not. Uh, I'll, uh, I'll just make sure they get ready upstairs."

O-O-O-O

Xander swung a tight right hook that knocked a vampire aside, followed by getting hit in the face by a similar attack from another vampire. He lashed out with his stake, missed a heart by a fraction, twisted it around a little and a vampire dusted. He got a brutal kick to the back of the kidneys, another heavy handed hook which he managed to block and then he retaliated with a reckless jab of his stake into a vampires jaw. The vampire went down but the stake broke and lost it's sharp end, becoming a useless small piece of wood.

Seeing that he was weaponless, the vampires attacked more doggedly. He blocked as good as he could and backed up, finally finding that he wasn't backing up into more punishment from behind. As two vampires tried to jump on him and push him to the ground, he pushed back, shrugging one to the side and lifting one off the ground.

Xander threw the vampire by the shoulders, slamming him against a metal fence. One of the sharp metal points on the fence peirced through an ankle and the vampire found himself hanging upside down in a very painful, scream inducing way.

The vampire screamed but Xander couldn't let it distract him. He was still outnumbered and was exhausted as two large vampires started lumbering towards him. One of them dusted and Cordelia appeared behind the disintegrating vampire.

Xander's eyes widened as he realized Cordelia was still alive. Once the action started, he lost track of her surprisingly fast.

The last vampire saw this, saw her and gave her a backhand slap which knocked her to the ground. Considering her down for the count, the vampire turned back to Xander and then silently gasped as Cordelia grabbed him in the groin area from behind. She pulled herself up by her handhold and coincedentally, pulled the vampire down.

She stabbed him in the back and as he dusted, it seemed that there weren't any other vampires in any state to fight them.

Xander stumbled forwards, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her passionately, despite his bruised lips. Even the pitiful sobbing of the upsidedown vampire didn't stop them, until the sobbing stopped very suddenly.

They turned around and found two more vampires waiting for them.

One of them, a short, beefy guy with dark hair, had a stake and was leaning on the fence where the upsidedown vampire was just hanging but wasn't to be seen now. The other was a taller, skinny girl. If it weren't for the green and pink dyed hair, she would've had a naughty librarian look to her. She was likely turned decades ago, in the height of the punk rock movement.

The guy, eyeing up Cordelia - "Ooooh, I like her. She's a keeper."

Xander - "More? Fine. Let's kill them too."

This just made the guy nodded and smirk - "Yeah, you two look good. We'll take you."

Xander frowned at the wording - "Huh?"

The guy, again - "Long story short, I'm Fox. This is Spider. I know, weird names. Anyway, you're our new slaves. Spider, let's show them how voilence is really done. I've got the guy. You take the ballbuster."

Spider, the girl, sighed as she unfurled what looked like a bullwhip. Less than a second and a sharp crack later, Spider had whipped the sharp end of Cordelia's stake off. Cordelia stared down at the blunt lump of wood in her hands then stared at Spider.

Cordelia - "Where can I get one of those?"

Spider, grinning wickedly - "Texas. But first you have to learn how to use it. Talking of which, I hope you like bondage."

Fox couldn't help but smirk - "Yeah, I hope you like bondage too. Rreow."

Cordelia gave him an annoyed glare and then found the bullwhip wrapped around her neck. Spider yanked on it and pulled Cordelia off her feet.

Xander surged forwards, pushing Spider away, knocking her off her feet with the force.

Cordelia involuntarily gagged as she pulled the bullwhip off her neck. It didn't choke her but it wasn't comfortable. She managed to get off the ground, onto her knees and found that there really wasn't a lot of voilence going on at all.

Xander just walked up to her and slipped something around her neck. It clicked it place as it locked.

Cordelia looked at him with confusion.

Xander, with regret on his face - "Uh, sorry."

Then Cordelia felt a very strange feeling as her legs lifted her up with her telling them too. Fox tilted his head as he watched her, as if carefully monitoring how she reacted.

She felt trapped but not immediately in danger. She noticed Xander was wearing a thin leather and metal strap around his neck. She reached up to her own neck and felt something similar. When she tried to pull it off, the muscles in her arms wouldn't obey.

As spider got off the ground, Cordelia saw that she was wearing a similar device on her neck too.

This didn't seem to stop Spider from storming over to Fox and slugging him in the arm.

Spider - "I had her under control. You didn't have to let him hit me like that."

Fox, rubbing his arm - "I didn't want her hurt too much. I know you like to slap them around a little but we need them in good health."

Spider - "And what about me?!"

Fox, dismissively - "Pff. You can take it."

Fox walked over to them and placed his hands on the two scoobie's shoulders and gave them a grin.

Fox - "Congratulations. You are now officially our slaves. There'll be lots of killing and maiming and a whole heap of stuff I'm sure you'll like. Also, I'm good at sex. I'm not bragging. It's just the truth. We boink like crazed baboons and you're gonna love it."

There was a pause and Fox seemed to be thinking.

Fox - "Okay. What now?"

Spider, emphatically - "I know what we should be doing."

Fox - "Spider, I like you. You're a good lay. But shut up or I will bite your throat out. I want an actual plan that doesn't involve us getting killed with our dicks in our hands. We need action. So when you move into a new town, what's the first thing you do?"

Spider, coiling up her whip - "If you must know. The first thing you do is create a power base. Deal with the competition. Kill them or get them to work for you."

Fox nodded - "Right. So who's the competition? You two, who's the biggest vampire here?"

Xander - "Uhh.. You?"

Fox rolled his eyes.

Fox - "Thanks for the compliment. I meant besides me. Who's the strongest vampire you know that isn't here right now."

Xander - "In Sunnydale?"

Fox - "Yeah. Who's the biggest, baddest bad ass there in town?"

Xander stayed silent, sending Cordelia looks.

Fox - "Come on. Just tell me who they are. Don't make me use this thing."

Fox lifted his right hand, which had a fingerless, leather glove with metal pieces that looked similar to those devices around their necks.

When Xander wouldn't talk, Fox closed his fist tightly and glared intensely at Xander.

Xander didn't seem to be influenced at this at all. Then he just blurted something out.

Xander - "Buffy. uh. Okay. That's weird. I didn't feel a thing. I just said what you wanted."

Fox - "Yeah, these things are pretty painless. Though, I can have Spider slap you around if you like pain."

Xander - "No, that's fine. I'm okay with no pain."

Spider - "Did he just say Buffy? The strongest vampire in town is called Buffy?"

Fox chuckled - "Yeah. Let's go find this creampuff cos I've got a little present for her. Uh, she is a girl, right?"

Cordelia - "Yes, she's a girl."

Fox - "Right. Not that I have anything against guys. I'm sure a guy called Buffy would be really fun."

With that, Fox looked Xander up and down in a way he never wanted to see from a guy.

Xander didn't seem too eager and Fox picked up on that.

Fox - "Ahh, I'm not your type? That's okay, you can boink Spider. I've gotten kinda bored with her, anyway. I'll take this chica instead."

With a flick of his wrist, Spider jumped on Xander, wrapping her legs around his waist and claiming his mouth. He stumbled back, unable to defend himself for some reason. While that was going on, Fox pulled Cordelia in from around the waist and gave her big, sloppy kiss. Cordelia's eyes bugged out and she put her hands up to his chest as if to push him away but couldn't for some reason.

Fox, grinning - "Is there something wrong?"

Cordelia tried to scream but something stopped her as Fox stopped grinning. He released her and stepped back, frowning

Fox - "Oh, you're gay. Hey, that's okay. I'm not gonna force it. But this Buffy, she's hot, right? And she does guys? Cos I gotta get some tail. I'm running low."

Fox gave Spider a squint and she extracted herself from Xander with an annoyed look pointed at Fox. Xander couldn't stop himself from grinning though.

Cordelia, to Fox - "Don't worry. Buffy likes everything. I'm sure you're right up her alley."

Fox - "Good to hear."

O-O-O-O

Back at the summers residence. Upstairs, in Buffy's room.

Tara was handcuffed, spread eagle, to Buffy's kingsized bed. She was covered in a blanket, as she was only wearing lingerie which she found incredibly embarassing. For some off reason, Dawn was dressed in a Santa's helper style red dress with fluffy white detailing and a way too short skirt. Though, it was around christmas time, so that might have something to do with it.

Willow, putting a bolt into a crossbow - "Dawn, what the hell? Where's the key? This isn't the time for anyone to be tied to a bed."

Dawn - "I don't know. I've been looking and looking and I just can't find it."

Willow - "Why did you do that to her, anyway?"

Dawn, trying to squirm out of her skin - "Uh, it's a thing we do sometimes."

There was a knock at the front door and Dawn panicked a new.

Dawn - "We need to find the key."

Willow heard Buffy's voice below as Lambie called out.

Lambie - "I've got it."

At the front door, Lambie, with a smile - "Come in."

Dawn - "Stall them, please? Just stop the others from finding Tara like this."

Willow, groaning - "Fine. Just find that key."

Willow left the room and looked down the stairs in time to Cordelia snap a collar on Lamb, who didn't seem to disturbed by that and went on smiling.

Willow, noticing new faces - "Uh, guys, what's going on?"

Xander, strangely calm - "This guy is controlling us with these magic collar things."

Willow - "Oh."

Then, without much hesitation, Willow aimed and shot a bolt from the crossbow at Fox. Spider stood in the road and caught the arrow in midair. She seemed surprised at that. Then she turned angry.

Spider - "Fox! I can't believe you made me do that! I could've been killed."

Fox shrugged - "Sorry but you're not my favorite. And GET THEM!"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter 


	45. 14b Foxy fun

Authors notes - Buffy killing the mayor in the previous episode didn't have any build up towards it. It would be pretty what-the-fudge if you were just reading it normally but since I put it in there after such a massive gap, perhaps there would be more confusion than there should be.

Don't worry, this chapter explains a few things and also sets up chances for more crazy vampire antics and crazy vampire sex antics.

O-O-O-O

Willow aimed and shot a bolt from her crossbow at Fox. Spider stood in the road and caught the arrow in midair. She seemed surprised at that. Then she turned angry.

Spider - "Fox! I can't believe you made me do that! I could've been killed!"

Fox shrugged - "Sorry but you're not my favorite. And GET THEM!"

All the vampires except Fox sprung into action. Spider threw the bolt away and jumped up the stairs in one tall leap, falling on Willow and tackling her the ground with ease. Cordelia ran into the kitchen and grabbed Joyce in a sleeper hold then proceeded to drag her into the lounge room where she found Fox lounging. Lamb sat next to him, still smiling oddly.

Fox waited patiently as there was a small commotion upstairs, after which Spider came down with Tara over her shoulder. Xander came down, Willow under one shoulder and Dawn over the other. When they got to the bottom, Xander put them down and pressed them against the floor to stop them struggling so much.

Tara, in kinky lingerie - "What's going on?"

Fox was about to reply but stopped himself and gave Tara a good oggle as she struggled, taking note of the handcuffs. Then he continued.

Fox, still looking Tara up and down - "Here's the sitch. I've got two collars left. Two of you are going to wear them. I like this little blonde so she's safe but the rest of you have to fight for them. So which one of you is Buffy?"

Lambronazi leaned over and whispered something in Fox's ear.

Fox - "Oh. She's not here. That's too bad. Since one of the collars goes on Buffy that means you lot only have one collar to share amongst yourselves."

Fox, still leering in Tara's direction - "I know who I like so far but let's give the rest a chance. Minions, line them up."

The collared vampires held their hostages in a line, Xander having the most trouble, trying to contain both Willow and Dawn at the same time. For some reason, Lambronazi was standing in line too, getting a weird look from Joyce.

Fox chuckled at Lambs antics - "Okay then. You're first."

He looked her up and down, nodded with appreciation, frisked her while taking note of muscle mass, particularly around the butt. Then he bit his bottom lip for a second before planting a kiss on her. She seemed surprised but went with it, much to the surprise of most watching. Then she really got into it, pressing the attack and hiking her leg up one side. It got a bit too much for Fox and he broke it up. He hemmed and readjusted his pants.

Fox, tweaking the end of her nose - "Phew, you pass with flying colors. Outstanding performance, soldier. Doing your country proud."

Then he moved on to Joyce, frisked her and then stopped when his hands got to her butt. He seemed puzzled by something..

Fox - "Hey. You're alive and you don't smell like a demon. Are you human?"

Joyce, a little unsure - "Yes."

Fox - "Sorry but I'm only looking for big strong vampires at the moment. You can go."

Cordelia released her and Joyce slowly moved away, confused. The others watched her make her way to the door and leave.

Cordelia took Dawn off Xander and held her in place for Fox to frisk her, which he did. Though, Fox frowned when Dawn tried her best to squirm away.

Fox - "Ahh. Gay. Again. What's with this town? Moving on."

Willow, before Fox even got to touch her - "I'm human too!"

Fox - "You are?"

Tara, piping in - "Me too! Does that mean I can go too?"

Fox grabbed both of them by the neck for a second while he checked for a pulse then dropped his arms back down and growled

Fox, to Tara - "Damnit! I was actually going to pick you. But since you're human. You're free to go. What the hell?"

Fox growled some more as he put a magical choker on Dawn - "I guess I've got another gay girl in my harem. What are the odds?"

Fox's sour disposition changed when he thought something up.

Fox - "But this works out for you. Since you're gay, you can have big and Beefy."

Cordelia - "I'm big and beefy?"

Fox, deviously - "Don't mind if I watch, do ya?"

Cordelia frowned at Fox until Dawn surprised her by smooching her. Both girls had their eyes wide open as Fox made them do things beyond their control, getting giggles from Lamb.

Tara - "Uh, Hey! Stop that!"

Fox - "Huh? What?"

Tara - "Who are you? Coming in here, doing .. that!"

Fox - "Girl, you do know they're vampires, right?"

Tara - "They're my friends."

Fox frowned - "Oh. Uh, look. This is awkward. Urm.. This might come as a shock but they're not your friends anymore. They're just assholes pretending to be your friends. When people become vampires, they turn evil. It's just a fact of life."

Tara stopped and shared some looks with Willow.

Fox - "It's true that I'm a vampire too but I'm good. Mostly. I like a little balance between good and evil. It keeps things fun. But I'm a lot better than your ex-friends will be, I can assure you."

Tara - "If you're really good, can you stop them doing that now?"

Fox, sighing - "If you really want. Party pooper."

Dawn and Cordelia broke off, Dawn with a stunned look on her face.

Dawn - "That was weird."

Cordelia, not so stunned - "Mmhmm. Weird."

Tara rushed over and hugged Dawn, who hugged her back and caught Fox's attention once more.

Willow, skeptically - "You're not evil? You've been cursed with a soul?"

Spider, horrified - "People do that here too?"

Fox chuckled - "No. I'm not cursed with a soul. I'm just good. It's got something to do with me being a slayer."

Xander - "Say what?"

Fox - "Oh, I forgot to mention that? Yeah, I'm a slayer."

Tara, half whispering - "He's a guy."

Willow's mouth dropped open - "Oh my god!"

Xander, with disgust - "Oh my god! He's.."

Cordelia, laughing her ass off - "He's Faith!"

Fox - "I'm who?"

Xander - "Wait. If he's Faith then who's Spider? Oh no. Not.."

Cordelia leaned the wall as she lost her balance laughing.

Willow, finding it funny too - "Spike?! Bwahah"

Xander - "Gah! I kissed Spike! I'll never feel clean again."

Fox - "What the hell are you laughing at?"

Willow - "You're from another dimension, aren't you?"

Spider - "It's that obvious?"

Willow - "I think we've been to yours before. Have you ever heard of a vampire called Buddy before?"

Fox - "Yeah, totally. He's my best bud. You've been to our world?"

Willow - "Xander and I have. Uh, here's the thing. You'll find everyone from your world here, except guys will be girls and girls will be guys."

Fox tilted his head at her, analysing her - "Willard?"

Willow grinned - "That's right. But here I'm called Willow."

Fox - "Damn, this is awesome. So.."

Fox pointed at Cordelia - "Sam!"

Then he pointed at Dawn and laughed - "Nix? Omigod, you're so cute as a girl. That's sick."

Willow, frowning - "Dawn's called Nix? That's a weird name for a guy."

Fox - "Short for Phoenix. I just call her Nix. Ha! I just had Nix kiss Sam! That's so cruel. But who the hell is Xander?"

Xander - "Uh, in your world I'm called Lexx."

Fox looked Xander up and down and shook his head - "Nuh-uh. You're no Lexx. You're way too huge and way too straight."

Xander - "Wait, what?"

Fox, a little wistfully - "Lexx is.. she's.. she was awesome. You're nothing like her."

He turned quiet for a few seconds and had all the vampires except Spider take off their chokers.

Cordelia, rubbing her neck - "Ahh, that's better."

Fox, of Tara - "And who's hotness supposed to be?"

Tara - "I'm hotness?"

Willow - "how did you get here? We destroyed the eldar keeping the portal open."

Fox, at Spider - "Eldar?"

Spider shrugged as she put the chockers in her pockets.

Willow - "There were two eldar gods who created a portal between our two worlds. But I'm pretty sure they're dead now. We killed them with power tools."

Fox shrugged - "I don't know anything about any elder gods. We got caught up in a stoner portal and ended up here."

Willow - "What's a stoner?"

Spider - "Be glad you don't know, luv. You're lucky you don't have to deal with them here."

Fox - "Hold on. They don't know what stoners are? But they've got to be here. We got caught in one's wake and wound up here. These scoobies need to get ready. I don't want them to hit them like they hit us."

Xander - "Wait. Just explain to us, what is a stoner?"

Spider - "They're tough as a brick shithouse."

Fox nodded - "Totally. Some of them are almost as tough as slayers and they attack in groups. A real bastard combination. And some can teleport. Obviously, they can teleport between dimensions. We grabbed one and he teleported here."

Xander - "That sounds like the face eaters."

Fox - "They do that too. Oh, you know about them?"

Willow - "You could say that. We haven't seen any yet though."

Xander - "That's a twist. We didn't know they moved through dimensions."

Willow - "That could explain a few things."

Xander - "Like what?"

Willow - "Xander. Remember that video tape we got from the future, it was about face eaters attacking?

Xander nodded - "What about it?"

Willow - "It was dated. But when that date came along, we still hadn't been attacked."

Xander - "Oh. I see where you're going."

Dawn - "I'm confused. Where is she going?"

Xander - "Either that tape was from another dimension or it was from our dimension and they tried to send someone back in time, like with the other me. Willow, when you go back in time, does everything go back in time or just the dimension you're in?"

Willow - "I don't know. If it's just the dimension then.."

Xander, grinning - "Then if you go into a dimension and it goes back in time, you get erased."

Fox - "Erased?"

Xander - "Erased from reality. All those face eaters that tried to take over our world before, we must have erased them when we went back in time. They're not even from our world. But there's still the question, how would we go back in time?"

Cordelia - "Your evil twin had an eldar god girlfriend who could muck with time."

Willow - "But, if you would remember, they needed power to do that, which Buffy got for them. I'm thinking Buffy found the key and gave it to the eldar god."

Tara - "The key?"

Willow - "It's got to be the key. Everyone's after the key. Whatever it does, it's big. Going back in time is big. It fits. That bodyswapper wanted the key. How much do you want to bet she was hired by the face eaters to find it? They're probably sick and tired of their armies in our world disappearing without a trace. And if the key wasn't important, why would Lambronazi put it in her prophecies?"

Fox, with Lambie snuggling against him - "Wait, who's this Lambronazi?"

Willow - "She's an ancient slayer prophet who went insane, turned into a vampire and is now snuggling into you armpit."

Fox, looking down at Lambie - "Oh. Hello there."

Xander - "Actually, I think Lambie knows more than we're giving her credit for. Lamb, you knew Fox was good, didn't you? That's why you let him in."

Lambronazi nodded.

Xander - "What about the key? Do you know who the key is?"

She nodded again.

Xander - "Can you tell us?"

Lambronazi giggled and shook her head.

Cordelia - "Is it me?"

Lambronazi laughed into Fox's shoulder, finding that funny.

Xander gasped - "It's me."

Cordelia - "I don't think it's you."

Willow - "Yeah. You've already got a mention in the prophecies. I doubt you're two characters."

Xander - "Hey, I could be. You know, because there's two of me."

Spider, lecherously at Xander - "There is? That sounds like fun."

Xander - "Gah! Don't look at me like that."

Spider frowned - "You're right, Fox. I don't think he's Lexx at all."

Xander - "Yes, I am. My last name is Harris, her last name is Harris. Lexx is female me."

Spider - "But she's a whore. A complete and utter tramp."

Xander - "Hey!"

Spider - "I like her but the truth is the truth, that girl has no shame whatsoever. She's worse than Angel."

Fox - "That's funny coming from you."

Spider - "I have standards, unlike her."

Fox - "Hey, she has.. uh."

Fox pouted slightly.

Spider - "See, you can't even say it."

Willow, finding it hilarious - "Omigod. Xander, you're a slut."

Xander - "I am not."

Fox - "Exactly. Which makes me think you're not Lexx."

Cordelia tilted her head to look out a window - "Hey, does anyone know why there's a massive crowd outside the house?"

Fox followed her gaze and his eyes widened at what he saw.

Fox - "Stoners!"

Spider - "Bloody hell. How many?"

Fox - "Too many."

Spider - "Shite. Have you got any weapons in this house?"

Fox - "It won't make a difference. There's tons of them."

Cordelia and Fox stared as the face eaters surrounded the house with an ever decreasing box.

Fox, without emotion - "Girl Sam, I want you to know that if you weren't a carpet muncher, I'd bang you all night long."

Cordelia gave him a glare and then the face eaters started smashing through the walls.

O-O-O-O

Some time after.

Xander groaned as he woke up, finding himself chained to a wall. As his eyes adjusted to the light in the dingy ruin of a building, he heard a voice he never wished he would hear again.

A completely different Xander - "Wakey wakey eggs and bakey."

Xander lifted his head to look his older, eviler twin in the eye. His evil twin was chained to the opposite wall in a similar fashion, along with a lot of other people he knew.

Evil Xander - "So, how has your day been?"

The younger Xander groaned.

Evil Xander - "I hear that."

Fox - "There's two of these Xander guys? That's further proof that they're not Lexx. Lexx isn't a twin."

Evil Xander - "There's two of us because I'm from the future. And who's this Lexx guy?"

Good Xander - "Don't ask. It's better if you don't know."

Fox - "I'm from a different dimension where guys are girls and girls are guys. Tomato head says you Xanders are the guy version of Lexx. I don't buy that."

Good Xander looked around the room and took note of the face eaters standing guard around the room. They were quite motionless. If he didn't get his head beaten in by them so recently, he would've sworn they were statues. They were wearing hoodies though, which is more mannequin than statue behaviour. The cheap plastic masks they were wearing would have looked comical if it weren't for the aforementioned beating.

Good Xander - "So what did I miss?"

Willow - "Not much. The face eaters grabbed us and chained us up here. They're also tearing apart the town. I think they're looking for something."

Evil Xander - "Or they could just be tearing apart the town."

Good Xander - "Didn't you say they could turn vampires? Maybe they're going to turn us."

Evil Xander, shaking his head - "No. They don't really need to prepare much for that. They just chew on your face and let nature take its course. I really don't know why they've gone through this trouble."

The room was sort of quiet for a bit. Good Xander tried his chains and found that they were quite solid.

Evil Xander took a look around the room, taking special interest in Tara, who was a few shackles down and in a state of half-dress.

Evil Xander - "Hey, Tara, looking good. So, who's the girl next to you?"

Spider - "Spider. Hi. In your world, there's a guy called Spike. I'm supposed to be him."

Evil Xander - "Wow, girl suits you. I'd do you."

Fox - "I already do her often. She's pretty good. And I'm.. what's girl me called again?"

Willow - "Faith. I've already told you four times."

Fox - "Sorry, I'm bad with names. So who turned Xander in this world?"

Good Xander - "Buffy. You'd call them Buddy."

Fox - "But, that doesn't make sense. In my world, Buddy never turned a girl so how would he turn a guy here?"

Evil Xander - "That's because I screwed up the course of history. In my past, Buffy didn't even turn into a vampire."

Fox - "Really?""

Evil Xander - "Yeah, totally. She sure as hell didn't turn me. I actually got turned by some random vampire chick. It's sort of embarassing."

Fox - "So is there a guy which girl-me turned here?"

Good Xander - "What do you mean? Faith has never turned anyone."

Tara - "Yeah, she hasn't."

Fox - "She talks! I thought she was like the other blonde."

Lambie pouted a bit.

Tara - "I can talk. I just have a head ache right now. And Faith hasn't turned anyone. Why? Did you?"

Fox - "Uh, yeah, I turned Lexx."

Good Xander, shocked - "You WHAT?!"

Fox, defensively - "Hey, it was a long time ago. I was in a very weird place at the time. Also, she tried to kill me! She almost did kill me. I'm a fricken slayer and she almost killed me. But that was way back before I had a handle on the whole vampire thing. Besides, if you'd ask her, she'll say she's way more happy as a vampire."

Good Xander - "Are you kidding me? Happier as a vampire?"

Fox - "She really enjoys it. Apparently it changed her personality a lot. To be honest, I never got to know her beforehand so I wouldn't know."

Good Xander - "I can't believe you turned Lexx. She's so small and cute and .. cute! You monster."

Fox - "Oh, wait. If Buddy turned you, that would explain why you turned out so different. Buddy was always a bit more..."

Spider, suggesting a word - "Reserved?"

Fox - "That fits. Yeah, reserved. He likes it when you play hard to get. Me, I hate hard to get."

Xander - "What? That's doesn't sound like our Buffy."

Willow, with a wicked grin - "Heh, yeah."

Fox noticed the grin and tilted his head, trying to decipher what it meant.

Cordelia, impatiently - "Man, what is taking them so long?"

Evil Xander - "I know. It's not like we can hang around here all day. Some of us will eventually have bowel movements and I'm chained right next to one."

Evil Xander tilted his head towards Willow who frowned back at him.

Cordelia - "Seriously though, what is taking them so long?"

Buffy - "Sorry. You guys were pretty out of it when we dragged you in. I wanted you all awake for my grand entrance."

Buffy entered, wearing a fur coat and with an entourage of atheletic looking vampires. It actually was very grand.

Willow - "Uh.. Buffy?"

Buffy, all smiles and sunshine - "Yes, Willow?"

Willow stared with her mouth open, not having a clue what to say.

Evil Xander - "Buffy? What the hell?! Wait, you're human. You're..."

Buffy nodded - "Yes."

Evil Xander - "You're..."

Buffy nodded again, as she walked closer to him - "That's right."

Evil Xander - "You're my Buffy."

Buffy, with a hand resting on his jaw - "Your Buffy? That sounds so possessive of you. I'd argue that you're my Xander. Not the other way around."

Evil Xander, obviously struggling with this - "You're the big bad?"

Buffy nodded - "I know. Shocking, isn't it. Hey, remember that time you brought me back from hell? Those were great times. But did you ever think that maybe I came back wrong?"

Evil Xander - "Uh, we brought you back from heaven, not hell. Remember that year you were suicidal? It sucked heavily."

Buffy - "Acting. I'm actually quite good at it."

Evil Xander - "No one's that good. Besides, there was that whole singing demon thing where you couldn't lie."

Buffy - "Okay. You win, you sucked me out of heaven, not hell. I'm still evil though."

Evil Xander - "What happened to you?"

Buffy - "You're concerned. I'm touched. But you really don't have to worry about me. I've got this situation perfectly under control."

Evil Xander, squinting at Buffy - "Wait, you are not Buffy, are you? Who are you?"

Buffy - "That's the funny thing. I actually am Buffy. I'm more Buffy than Buffy has ever been."

Fox, looking between Buffy and Lambie - "Uh, excuse me. Who is this chick and why does she look so similar to this girl?"

Buffy, walking over to Lambie - "It's because we are similar. So how's about it, other me? You've been awfully quiet."

Lambie just glared back at Buffy, not very intensely either. After a few seconds, Buffy pouted.

Buffy - "What? No puns? No insults? No pithy repartee? You know you want to."

Buffy waited some more and looked around to the others, as if for an explanation.

Buffy - "I know it's a bit shocking to meet your future self and realise they're the queen of all evil but come on. Say something. Anything. At least make a demeaning statement about how I'm dressed. Doesn't it make me look like a streetwalker?"

Buffy, to the others - "What's wrong with her? I heard vampire me was a real live wire. But what the hell is this? It's like talking to a brick wall. It's no fun monologuing if they don't talk back."

Buffy gently poked Lambie on the forehead for no particular reason then groaned.

Buffy - "This was a bust. Let's just kill everyone now. Vamps, take that redhead outside and kill her."

Willow, shocked as vampires unlocked her shackles. - "What? Why me?"

Evil Xander - "Yeah, why Willow? She's supposed to be your best friend."

Buffy - "She's supposed to be. But then she's also tried to kill me a few times. Plus there was that whole destroy the world thing. Let's face it, she's just too dangeorus to keep alive. I'll tell you what, to show you I'm not entirely heartless, she can die with Tara. No one should die alone."

Buffy pointed to Tara and some other vampires unshackled her too.

Evil Xander - "Uh, Buffy, I think you should reconsider this."

Buffy - "Hey, I'm evil so shut up."

Dawn, struggling with her chains anew - "What is wrong with you?! You can't do this. They're your friends."

Buffy - "Oh, Dawnie. You'd think becoming a vampire would give you a little spine. Too bad it didn't."

Evil Xander - "What? Dawn?"

Evil Xander twisted his head and spotted Dawn for the first time, shackled quite a distance away.

Evil Xander - "Holy cow! Dawn?! What is she doing here? Wait, there's something screwy going on here."

Buffy - "Yeah, I know. She's a few years older than she should be too."

Dawn - "What are you talking about?"

Buffy, to Evil Xander - "I think it's got something to do with that time travel spell you did with her. And yes, I know about that."

Evil Xander - "I figured that. What I want to know is how the hell did you come back in time too?"

Buffy - "I didn't. Weird thing about your time travel thing, it didn't just send you back in time. It sent this entire universe back in time. Fortunately for me, I wasn't in this universe. I was visiting somewhere else. So when I came back from my vacation, I found that I had gone back in time."

Evil Xander - "I guess. But that doesn't explain why the face eaters aren't eating your face."

Buffy - "Oh, you call them face eaters? I call them drones."

Fox - "I call them stoners."

Buffy tapped one of the face eaters, as if knocking on a door.

Buffy - "I think it's more like porcelain than stone."

Evil Xander - "How the hell are you controlling them?"

Buffy - "Oh, I wish I controlled them. I'm just their local representative. Weird thing, the face eaters need one in each world. Otherwise they can't invade it. I'm it for this one. It has to do with eldritch powers beyond the kin of men and other boring details."

Evil Xander - "So who's behind the face eaters?"

Buffy - "I think you've asked enough questions."

Evil Xander - "Buffy, please. For old times sake."

Buffy looked like she wanted to but a face eater shifted a little behind her and she turned around as if surprised by it. Then she went back to all smiles and sunshine.

Buffy - "I'll give you a hint. Before I turned evil, I had sex with him. The sex wasn't what turned me evil, in case you were wondering."

Xander - "If it was Angel, I'm gonna rip his balls off."

Buffy - "Angel? He's old news."

Xander - "Spike? No. Please tell me it's not Riley."

Buffy, laughing - "Xander. Just shut up. Seriously."

Xander - "Well, if it's not Angel and it's not Riley then it's.. no way."

Buffy - "Yes way. Surprised me too."

Xander - "The Immortal? I always knew there was something wrong with him."

Buffy - "You're only saying that because there's been something wrong with every other guy I've been with. He was actually awesome. The things he could do to me.... I've already said more than enough. I don't want to give too much away, do I? Back to killing."

Buffy pulled out a stake and pressed it ever so gently against Fox's chest.

Buffy - "Starting with you. You caused a lot of trouble, stumbling on our dimensional nexus like that. We had to prematurely attack this world because of you. But since we've got the key right there and the only other person from the future right here, I think our attack will go just fine."

Fox, trying to sound cool while staring down at the stake - "Don't act like I did it on purpose. Maybe if you kept it closed, I wouldn't have fallen into it. Seriously, were you born in a barn?"

Buffy laughed lightly - "Hey, you might be fun. I wonder. I might be able to keep you, if you play nice."

Fox - "Nice isn't my strong suit but for you, sure, I can try."

There was a loud, electronic crackle as someone outside tested a megaphone.

A distinctly familiar sound female voice, on a megaphone - "Hello Los Angeles. Are we gonna rock it?"

Dawn - "Is that Buffy?"

A crowd cheered outside - "Yeah!"

Buffy, turning to Lambronazi - "Huh? But you're here."

Buffy, on the megaphone outside - "Then let's rock it!"

Human Buffy - "Guards, mobilize."

The face eaters all turned mechanically towards the front of church and filed out while the vampires seemed less sure of what they were supposed to do.

Then the stained glass windows behind the altar blew inwards as figures flew through it and landed at the back of the church.

Buffy turned and stared as Angel, Spike, Faith and yet another Buffy readied their weapons. She gave Lambronazi a quick look then turned back to her other self..

Spike - "Did someone order for a scourge of europe?"

Angel - "Spike, we're not called that any more."

Spike - "You might not be. But I'm keeping it. Hang on, three Buffys? I'm confused. Maybe a little aroused too."

Good Xander - "This is Buffy from the future. She's evil. Kill her."

Spike - "Oh, okay, not confused. Thanks."

Spike looked like he wanted a slice of evil Buffy but the slightly less evil Buffy stopped him.

VampBuffy - "This bitch is mine."

HumanBuffy, smiling - "That's more like it!"

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	46. 14c Chew your food

VampBuffy - "This bitch is mine."

HumanBuffy, smiling - "That's more like it."

HumanBuffy shrugged off her fur coat and pulled out a small sword which she had tucked behind the small of her back.

Several of her vampire minions armed themselves and a few face eaters confronted the new threat too.

But Buffy only really cared about herself.

VampBuffy flashed forwards, her sword going straight for a kill strike while HumanBuffy deflected it with an easy grace. A fraction of a second later, they were swinging swords at each other at a blinding speed. Sparks flared where the swords met in mid-air until HumanBuffy's sword broke. VampBuffy got a glancing cut after the unexpected sword break and HumanBuffy got the upper hand as she grabbed VampBuffy's sword arm with both hands and brought her knee up. The vampire's arm broke with a loud snap. VampBuffy's sword fell out of her hand as HumanBuffy brought a stake out of somewhere.

Before VampBuffy could pull away, HumanBuffy held her last working arm by the wrist and pushed her against the wall with a stake pressed against her heart but not piercing quite it.

HumanBuffy - "I knew it. I always knew I'd be a better Buffy than you."

VampBuffy - "Okay, I'll admit, you've got some moves. But you're not going to win tonight."

HumanBuffy just grinned, as Angel and Spike were found themselves overwhelmed by greater numbers and the absurdly armored face eaters. In the background, the footfalls of an approaching army could be heard.

HumanBuffy - "But I am. You hear that? That's reinforcements."

HumanBuffy blanched as VampBuffy's supposedly useless hand grabbed her stake hand and the exposed bone in her broken arm pulled itself back into it place.

Then VampBuffy pulled the stake away enough to head butt her future self in the face. Human Buffy recoiled back and VampBuffy followed up with a brutal roundhouse punch that spun them both around.

Rather than being stunned, HumanBuffy stopped herself spinning and stood back, to take in her other self.

HumanBuffy, wincing as she touched her sore jaw - "That's not normal."

VampBuffy, flexing her not-so-broken arm - "Of course I'm not normal. I'm Buffy. I'd think you of all people would know that already. And just so you know, those are my reinforcements outside. Not yours."

While her vampire self was smirking, HumanBuffy lunged fast with her stake. VampBuffy didn't even try to avoid it.

The stake hit true, straight in the heart and VampBuffy flinched with the pain. Then HumanBuffy flinched as VampBuffy stabbed her in the heart with a dagger.

HumanBuffy - "But... heart."

VampBuffy - "That only works on vampires. Do your homework next time."

HumanBuffy's eyes went pitch black as black blood flowed freely down the front of shirt. She fell backwards and VampBuffy eased her down gently.

HumanBuffy - "I can't believe you, bitch. I worked so hard to get this body and you took it away.""

Then a giant fiery bull like apparition rose from the dying girl, screamed in fury and blinked into nothing as it left the scene. Then, inexplicably, the face eaters in the room screamed pitifully and fell to the ground.

Then VampBuffy truly met herself for the first time. But she was too far gone to live much longer.

VampBuffy, pulling the stake out of her heart - "I'm sorry but we need you to live a little bit longer."

She pressed their gaping wounds together and their blood mingled. The dying girl's eyes widened with the connection, as she felt an unexpected power flow into her.

VampBuffy, on top - "You're not the first girl I've done this to. There have been so very many."

To both Buffys it was as if the fighting that surrounded them was a movie, some other world that they weren't a part of, someone else's problem.

There was an earth shaking tearing sound and the building shook as the front of the church was torn down with a surprising amount of force. Behind the wall was a horde of battle ready vampires. Weirdly, most of them looked like teenage girls.

Face eaters and vampires alike started floating off the floor and separated from each other, as if being sorted in mid air. Then they were selectively torn apart by unseen forces. The vampires screamed and dusted while the face eaters broke apart like chalk snapped between fingers.

Some vampires charged the girls and a telekinetic wave flew forwards and tore them in half with incredible speed and force. What vampires weren't caught up in the attack scattered, trying their best to get out of there.

Faith, scared of the newcomers - "Uh, Buffy?"

But Buffy wasn't listening. She was too busy bleeding.

The girl in front of the other girls - "It's okay. We're on your side."

Good Xander – "Oberon?"

In the front of the crowd stood Oberon, someone who should be dead. Not only that but she looked really cool in a long black leather jacket and shades. It was very matrix.

Oberon, suddenly not so sure of herself - "Uh, hi. Let me get those for you."

Her brow scrunched up a bit and the shackles holding the Scoobies to the walls were torn off.

A remarkably plain looking girl patted Oberon on the shoulder and turned to the others.

Plain girl - "Okay, looks like Buffy's otherwise occupied. So I'm in charge. Everyone spread out and secure the area."

Faith - "Who the hell are you people? And what the hell is Buffy doing? And I'm very confused!"

Fox - "I'm right there with you, sister."

Once free, Dawn pushed her way through the crowd in the same direction Willow and Tara had been taken. The girls were spreading out, so she wasn't completely fighting against traffic.

She found her way to a large storage room, where some girls were looking over the dead bodies of Willow and Tara.

A girl checking Willow's mouth - "Ahh, crap. They've been vamped already."

Another girl - "Isn't the redhead Buffy's main squeeze?"

First girl - "Yup, that's the one."

One of the unknown girls - "I am so not explaining this mess to Buffy."

O-O-O-O

The next few hours for the Scoobies were more confusing. No one much had explained much and Buffy was nowhere to be seen. Giles and Wesley were still missing in action, as was Oz. Dawn hadn't mentioned Willow and Tara's fate yet either. She hadn't said much at all. They were herded to the highschool by the girl army and then into the basement. As they were being led, they saw that the army of girls had dead bodies on stretchers and were taking them down too. They recognized quite a few of the bodies from school.

They were led down an uncomfortably small spiral staircase, along with the dead bodies, into a very large concrete reinforced hall.

Once there, they were told to stay put while the girls kept bringing more and more bodies in. Eventually Giles and Wesley came in, forced to stand by the other Scoobies.

After a while, some of the bodies woke up and looked very surprised at where they were. The girls were expecting this and came along with bottles of blood which they fed the newcomers. Despite the fact that they didn't seem in any danger, the Scoobies found themselves in an extreme case of unease.

Spike, mostly to himself - "What the bloody hell is going on?"

A girl behind Spike - "This is going on."

When Spike turned around to face the girl, they punched him hard in the face which made him fall on his ass. From the floor, he stared up at the girl which he recognized straight away.

GoodXander - "Kendra?! Omigod, Kendra! I saw you die. How did you... Oh."

Kendra, rubbing her fist - "Yeah. That. I'm a vampire now and ow, Spike. I hurt my hand on your nose. What is your face made out of?"

Spike didn't seem too apologetic as he picked himself off the floor.

Spike - "Nice to see you too, luv. Long time no see. I didn't know Dru turned you."

Kendra - "She didn't. It's Buffy's fault I'm a vampire."

Fox, with his slimiest grin - "Hi. Name's Fox. Kendra, is it?"

Cordelia, rolling her eyes - "Don't start with her now."

Fox - "Why not? She's hot. She's not gay too, is she?"

Faith - "If she is, she's mine."

Kendra, not impressed with Fox - "Are they with you?"

GoodXander - "Kendra, this is Faith. Your slayer replacement. And this is Fox... don't mind him."

OldXander - "If you don't mind me saying, Kendra, you look a whole lot better than I remember."

Kendra, deadpanned - "That's great. Now, if you would please follow me. Buffy wants to see Xander. The younger Xander. The rest of you, I'll show you to your quarters after that."

Kendra did a heel turn and started walking. With few other options, the Scoobies followed.

Cordelia - "Just wondering, what did you mean about cannon fodder?"

Kendra - "The corpses we're bringing in, we're turning them. But they're not slayers. They're not even going to be proper vampires. We turn them with some simple alchemy and slayer blood. What we end up with are vampires who aren't very vampire like. But they follow orders well and they'll help fill out our ranks. That's why we call them cannon fodder."

Dawn, frowning - "Am I cannon fodder?"

Faith, smirking - "But you're cute cannon fodder."

This didn't seem to please Dawn.

They were taken through a somewhat large bulkhead style door and were surprised to find before them an actual underground city, mostly made out of concrete. There were splashes of color and wood here and there. There were even a few neon signs but they weren't turned on at the moment. In fact, most of this supposed city looked and sounded to be quite dead. Maybe it was just asleep. It looked as big as Sunnydale itself, if not bigger.

Xander, taking it in - "Whoa"

Kendra gently pulled him along, up some stairs, past some guards and into what looked like a very plush rumpus room. The others tried to follow but guard girls stopped them.

Kendra, to the rest of the Scoobies - "Buffy wants to talk to Xander alone. Just wait there. I'll be right back out."

She pulled him inside and presented him with "Buffy, here's your kid."

Buffy didn't reply as Kendra left and Xander checked Buffy out. She was lying on what looked like a giant, lumpy, mutant couch. Her future self was lying next to her, looking half dead. The much more alive Buffy, which he thought he knew, looked sort of different. She looked a little more cold blooded and seemed to be lacking in humor.

Buffy - "So what do you think of my den of iniquity?"

Xander - "Buffy, what the hell is going on?"

Buffy - "It's a long story. Long story short, they're an army. My army. Most of them are slayers."

Xander - "Wait, so..."

He looked at a redhead who was leaning by a wall. Weirdly, she looked a little bit like Willow.

Buffy - "Yup, she's a slayer. Say hi, Bonny."

Bonny - "Hi, Bonny."

Buffy - "I turned her too. This comes to the whole reason I asked you in. I've been keeping certain information from you. If I told you before, it might have caused problems with the council but now, this is the least of the council's problems. Good news, Xander. You're not a vampire."

Xander, frowning - "Yeah, I sort of am."

Buffy - "Nope. Sorry. Not a vampire. Bad news is ... oh, I don't think you're going to like this."

Xander - "Why? Wait, if I'm not a vampire, what am I?"

Buffy couldn't help but smile when Bonny tittered - "You're a succubus."

Xander - "I'm a what now?"

Buffy - "A succubus. There's actually very many breeds. Our breed is sort of like a vampire except instead of drinking blood, we drink... a different fluid... from men."

Xander - "Whoa, wait. No. You must be joking. Please tell me this is a joke. Buffy, you're a vampire. Since when did you become a ... sucky thing?"

Buffy - "Remember when I went back in time? Lamb went forward in time when she died and I replaced her back in her old body. Me being undead meant that death wasn't as permanent but I wasn't a vampire anymore. I couldn't even get out of her grave. I was so weak. Also, I think I was slowly decaying. Eventually someone dug me up. Or should I say something? It was a demon. They gave me a Faustian deal. I accepted. They filled me back up with power, turning me into what I am today."

Xander – "What did you have to do for the deal? You don't have a soul to sell."

Buffy, grinning – "I had to make an undead army. Which I've done."

Xander - "So, you're saying this army of darkness belongs to some demon?"

Buffy - "No, I haven't even seen him again since then. He knew about the face eaters and everything. Way back then, he knew. He wanted to stop them. I guess maybe he wasn't so bad."

Xander - "Oh, uh. Then why the hell did you turn me then? I don't really like guys."

Bonny, chuckling - "It does seem a little cruel. You've never turned a boy before."

Xander - "Yeah, particularly when we could've had Faith turn me. Oh, wait... this explains the whole sex thing when you turned me. I knew that wasn't normal."

Buffy chuckled too - "Oh no, that was totally not normal. I'm surprised no one else realized that. But hey, now you know why blood doesn't work for you. Unless it's mine or another succubus."

Xander - "This is so not cool."

Buffy, grinning wickedly - "I'm sure you'll adapt."

Xander - "No thanks. I think I'd rather stake myself. Oh, wait. Stakes don't kill us, do they?"

Buffy shook her head - "See. Advantages already. Decapitation still works though. So watch out for that."

Xander, somewhat seriously - "I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you for this."

Buffy, frowning - "I didn't do it just for kicks. I did it for you."

Xander - "By what twisted logic?"

Buffy - "You were dying and there were two people who could save you. Me or Faith. I'm sure Faith would've loved to turn you but you wouldn't have wanted that. Xander, have you noticed how Dawn is a little different from other vampires?"

Xander - "How so?"

Buffy, sighing - "She's a lot weaker than she should be. She's got no killer instincts. No grit. That's because the first childe is always a throwaway. They're not much good except for beings toys. If Faith turned you, you'd be out of the fight for good. But I've got experience. All my children turn out strong. And you don't have to deal with guys if you don't want to. You can just feed off any of my other children down here. I've got more than a few. Hungry? Take Bonny into the other room. She seems pretty juiced up right now."

Bonny nodded with a bright grin.

Xander, not too sure about that - "Uh."

Bonny, finding this amusing - "There's no need to be shy, big boy."

Buffy, also finding it amusing - "Oh, yeah, he's a big boy."

The doors behind Xander opened and a short girl walked in. She was even shorter than Buffy.

Short girl - "Buffy, we've got a problem upstairs, in the school. There are some vampires barricading themselves up there. Something about it is a bit unusual."

Buffy - "Do I really have to get up? I did just allow myself to get staked in the heart, you know."

Short girl, a little less sure - "I was told to get you."

The short girl nervously fiddled with the shiny golden star on her belt. She seemed to be trying to wipe something off it.

Buffy groaned as she got up, sliding herself out from under her twin - "Fine. Let's take a look on the security cameras. Bonny, Watch the other me, kay?"

Back on the couch, the other Buffy stared at the ceiling.

O-O-O-O

Dawn found herself in part of the underground city which she was warned not to go. Lambie came along with to her.

Dawn - "Tara and Willow. Where are they?"

The guard squinted at Dawn.

Guard girl, to Dawn - "Uh, who are you again?"

Dawn - "Dawn. Buffy's childe. And don't mind Buffy. She's just a bit drained from, you know, being drained."

Guard, looking on an electronic notepad - "Tara and Willow? Ahh, the priority prisoners. We've already done some preliminary tests. We've got Tara on a transfusion and she's already rehabilitating. But your redhead is a different story. She might be irredeemable. Her magic potential is crazily high. She'll absorb most of the blood magic we'd give her. She'd literally feed off it."

Dawn - "So, umm, they don't have souls anymore?"

The prison guard looked at Dawn oddly and nodded.

Guard - "That normally happens when you become a vampire."

Dawn - "I mean, they're evil?"

Guard - "Oh, yes. As far as we can tell they're both evil as pie. With a little training and the right magic, we might be able to bring them down to just fun evil instead of boil the world in its own juices evil."

Dawn frowned and asked - "Uh, do you think we could go back up to the surface and get some of Buffy's magic books?"

The guard frowned too - "Most of them are already down here in her study. Someone is probably in charge of getting the rest down here too. Why?"

Dawn - "Oh, uh, Buffy wants Tara and Willow in restraints and taken to her study then."

Guard, to Lambie - "She does?"

Lambie didn't say anything but nodded, a little unsure.

Guard - "Okay, you're the boss, Boss."

O-O-O-O

Up on the surface, Fox knocked on the twin doors into the library. Buffy, Spider and some slayers were standing nearby too.

Buffy - "Hey, open up in there. It's Buffy."

The barricade was removed remarkably quickly and the doors sprung open. Before anyone could walk through them, a dark haired girl knocked Fox down to the ground and smothered him with kisses.

Fox, laughing as Lexx tickled him with her kisses – "Hey, I get it, Spanky. You're happy to see me."

Behind Fox stood Buddy, Buffy's male alternate, Sam, Cordelia's male alternate, Willard, Willow's male alternate, Lara, Larry's female alternate and a female version of Angel which is still called Angel. All of them looked like they had been through a war.

Lexx - "Fox! We thought you died. Willard was tracking you with magic but then all of a sudden we lost your signal."

Buffy - "That would be my fault."

Faith, smirking as she looked at Lexx – "Spanky?"

Lexx looked between Faith and Fox a few times then burst out laughing.

Lexx – "Fox, is that is you?! That's you, isn't it? Oh my god! She's adorable. She's even got your nose. It looks so weird on a girl."

Faith frowned a bit and Lexx stopped laughing, to be apologetic.

Lexx – "It looks good. It's a very strong nose. It's got lots of character. Personally, I love it."

Fox – "Lexx. This is Faith. Yes, she is girl me. It's not that funny."

Faith – "Lexx? But that's... You're Xander as a girl? Wow. You're a lot shorter."

Lexx shrugged and extracted herself from Fox.

Faith – "And you're a vampire too?"

Lexx nodding – "Yeah, I'm a vampire and you too! Hey, did you turn big hunky me? I can't really see that. Cos you're so small and cute."

Faith – "I didn't – Wait, you mean Fox turned you?"

Lexx – "Don't worry, it's worked out well so far."

Faith - "Was she dying or something?"

Lexx – "Dying? No. Not until he bit me like a typical vampire jerk."

Fox groaned – "I was in a weird place and I've already said sorry enough."

Lexx, pouting almost playfully – "Sorry but you can't say sorry enough."

Faith – "You turned her? What the hell, man?"

Fox – "Like I said. I was in a really weird place. Buddy thought I was evil. I thought I was evil. We were having fights to the death and stuff. I was under a lot of pressure."

Buddy, adding quickly – "By the way, I won those fights."

Fox – "And long story short, I turned Lexx. It wasn't smart but everything turned out okay."

Lexx – "Yeah. I turned him to the good side."

Faith, trying to spot a lie – "Seriously?"

Lexx – "It did involve me shackling him down."

Fox – "Some parts I even liked."

Lexx grinned - "Liar. You liked all the parts."

Buddy chuckled but was cut off as Fox grabbed him around the head and kissed him passionately. Cordelia's alternate, Sam, winced and looked like he was coming down with an instant migraine. Buddy didn't really reciprocate. He rolled his eyes and made a sign of shrugging while Lara put her hands on her hips.

Lara, a little angry – "Fox. What did I tell you about kissing my boyfriend?"

Fox stopped kissing Buddy and laughed.

Fox – "That you love it?"

Lara, chuckling a bit – "Yeah, I do. I'm seriously the coolest girlfriend ever."

Buddy, pushing Fox away slowly – "That you are."

Buffy - "Oh, hi Lara. You're Buddy's girlfriend?"

Buddy hugged Lara around the shoulder and she nodded.

Lara - "Yeah, I sort of love the big lug."

Buffy - "Whoa, uh, but, you're still human, right? That can't be safe."

Lara - "There have been a few blood related close calls. But that's in the past."

Buffy blinked at her - "But, huh? The only time I had sex with our Larry, I almost killed him. I didn't even try to bite him. I was actually banned from sex because of it."

Buddy frowned - "Huh? What?"

Buffy - "Never mind. So, just here for a visit?"

Spider – "Where's Durant?"

Buddy winced - "Spider, I don't know how to tell you this. He didn't make it."

Spider - "But he's still alive, right?"

The question hung in the air for a few seconds and Buddy gloomily shook his head.

Then Spider went ballistic, launching herself at the female version of Angel.

Spider, in full game face - "You shoulda protected him!"

Angel, defensively - "I tried! You think I wanted him dead?"

Fox pulled Spider off and held her as she broke down and sobbed into his shoulder.

Fox, yelling a bit above Spider's sobs - "So what's the plan? Get some reinforcements then go back and kick some ass?"

Buddy shook his head – "We're not going back. We're all that's left."

Fox – "What do you mean? What about Giles and your Dad?"

Buddy, putting more emphasis into his words – "We're all that's left."

Fox – "Damn. That's... Damn."

Buffy, somewhat quietly - "Who was Durant?"

Buddy - "Spider's sire. Poor, crazy son of a bitch. He was actually pretty cool when he's not trying to bite your nose off."

Buffy - "Huh? That'd be Drusilla here. But our Drusilla was an evil bitch."

Buddy - "So was ours. We keep our evil vampire friends in line with these leather chokers. They're magic."

Buddy tapped the choker Angel was wearing to show what he meant.

Buddy, showing her the tasteless leather and metal glove he was wearing - "Anyone wearing one of these gloves can control any vampire wearing a choker."

Buffy - "Right. Sounds useful. We use spells for that here. So your Angel is still evil?"

Angel frowned as Buffy looked closer at her.

Angel - "Haven't we met before? I never forget a face."

Buffy - "Yeah. Buddy called me Delilah."

Angel, not that impressed - "Now I remember."

Buddy - "Buffy, our world got wasted. This horde of asshole demons came out of nowhere. We didn't stand a chance."

Buffy - "Yeah, I know about them. We're dealing with them here now. I got a safe haven downstairs. Food, blood, sleep, it's all there. You look like you need it. Also, if anyone is trying to track you using magic, they won't be able to find you there. The whole place is shielded from magic."

Buddy - "Sounds good. Lead the way."

Buffy turned around and did lead the way.

No one really noticed Faith looking Lexx up and down except Lexx, who just smiled deviously back at her.

Faith, smirking - "So, Spanky?"

Fox slapped her on the ass and Lexx fell to one knee, her mouth open with surprise. After a few seconds, she growled and gave Fox a not so impressed look.

Lexx - "Fox, you've got to stop doing that in public."

Fox, grinning - "I turned her by biting her in the ass. Even after all this time, it's still a bit sensitive."

Lexx, slowly lifting her self back up - "Yeah, that's putting it mildly. He bit down to the bone."

Faith - "Sensitive in a good way?"

Lexx, with a naughty look - "Sometimes."

Fox - "In other words, yeah, totally in a good way."

Faith - "Nice. We could have some fun with that."

Buffy, not in such a fun mood - "That's fascinating and everything but we need to get back."

O-O-O-O

Not-actually-a-vampire Xander stopped outside a relatively small concrete building. It was surprisingly boring on the outside but then it looked like it was made for strength instead of style. In front of it stood two girls, guarding the front door. One was small and looked South American while the other was a surprisingly heavy set European who probably ate lots of steak as a kid.

Besides Xander, the two guards were the only signs of life in this underground city since he left Buffy's office behind. It was sort of unsettling how much of a ghost town it felt like.

Xander, to the guards - "I'm looking for Oberon? Is this the right place?"

Shorter guard with a surprisingly modern Mexican accent – "Step back, man. You might be a fan but she doesn't do autographs."

The front door opened and Oberon called through it.

Oberon, sadly – "It's okay. Let him pass. I was expecting him."

The small girl didn't seem happy about this - "You sure? We were told no boys for you."

Oberon, a bit sterner – "I'm sure. And give us some privacy?"

The two bodyguards looked Xander up and down then gave each other a look which said they didn't think much of him. But they let him through and he closed the door behind him.

It took a moment for Xander's eyes to adjust to the light but when they did, he found himself in a vault like room with Oberon sitting in a chair.

She had her hands tucked between her knees and she wasn't looking him in the eyes. She actually looked traumatized. On the plus side, she looked healthier. Not so anemic and a bit fleshier in the right places. Xander wasn't sure what to say but it didn't take Oberon long to start talking.

Oberon, pleading quite fluently – "I am so sorry. I can't say that enough. I-I'm crazy. I can't process information properly. My instincts are all wrong. I thought I felt something which wasn't there. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. You've got to believe me."

Xander, stopping her – "I believe you! But you died. Didn't you? I saw that explosion."

Oberon, turning away – "Oh. That's why you're here. That's embarrassing."

Xander – "So what happened?"

Oberon – "Buffy saved me."

Xander blinked at her – "What? How?"

Oberon – "I was about to die and then Buffy came out of nowhere and teleported me away with her. She took me here. And here I've been ever since."

Xander frowned – "Buffy can teleport? You're sure?"

Oberon's eyebrows wriggled a little as she showed some conflicting emotions.

Oberon – "I think so. Like I said, I'm crazy. I trust everyone else to tell me what is what."

Xander – "Hmm. Okay. I'll ask Buffy about this then. And what did that girl say about no boys for you? Please don't tell me you attacked another boy after me."

Oberon, distraught - "No! I-I haven't. I won't. I know now that it's bad and that boys can make me a bit crazy. So, I stay away from them now on. Buffy's orders."

Xander felt a sting of sympathy for his ex-torturer, moved closer and placed his hands on her shoulders.

Xander, quietly – "Oberon, Buffy can't order you to stay away from guys. I know you're not like most vampires. You can be so sensitive, so tender. Lots of guys would just hurt you. You just have to take it slower. That's all. There are guys out there for you. Decent guys who'll treat you right. Though, most of them won't be vampires."

Oberon listened to what he said then looked down at his hands then back up into his face.

Oberon – "Xander, you're cold?"

Xander, looking into her eyes– "I'm a vampire too now. Like you... sort of. Fricken Buffy."

As they looked into each others eyes, the situation got sexually charged very quickly and Oberon looked like she was about kiss Xander but stopped herself quickly. She kept her arms at her sides and fought hard against what her instincts were telling her to do. She wanted to get free but wouldn't shake loose.

Xander – "What's wrong?"

Oberon, looking away, ashamed – "You should go. You don't know how you make me feel. I'm getting urges."

Xander considered this – "You know I don't technically have a girlfriend anymore."

At that, Oberon smiled sort of timidly and asked - "Really?"

Xander - "This isn't why I came here but... No mind games."

Oberon - "Deal."

Xander smooched her hard. She seemed surprised and made a funny high pitched sound. But they kept kissing and their arms wrapped around each other. Then Xander forced her away a little, as if going up for air.

Xander – "Wait, wait. This is totally the wrong way to do this. I don't know about where you grew up but for me, people should get to know each other first. They should go on dates. Because they might not be compatible. They might wind up hating each other."

Oberon nodded – "You're right. We can date. Later."

Xander couldn't help smile – "Later? So until that time…?"

Then they got back into it with Oberon tearing his shirt off and laughing gleefully.

From outside, the smaller guard called out – "Hey! You better not be doing what I think you're doing."

Oberon waved a hand, causing the doors and windows bolted themselves shut.

Xander - "That is so cool."

Oberon - "You aint seen nothing yet."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	47. 14d New arrivals

Warning : Even more complications ahead. You have been warned.

O-O-O-O

Giles, Wesley and Angel were awkwardly waiting for Buffy to get back. Meanwhile, the Buffy they didn't know was on the couch, biting another girl on the wrist and making incoherent sounds. The victim seemed to enjoy this immensely. There were other girls in the room too and most of them were eyeing up the three men.

When Buffy walked into the room, Giles verbally assaulted her straight away.

Giles - "Buffy, I demand an explanation!"

Buffy, not phased in the slightest - "Just gimme a second. I still haven't fed since I turned myself over there and I'm getting peckish."

Buffy pointed to a girl who cheerfully flounced over. Buffy grabbed them around the waist and plunged her teeth into their neck. The three men watched the victims eyes rolled up towards the ceiling in an awkwardly erotic way. After a mere handful of seconds had passed, Buffy stopped feeding and left the girl sitting on her desk, with a dopey smile on her face.

Buffy, after licking her lips - "Much better. Now what was it?"

It looked like Giles lost his train of thought but was trying to regain it.

Giles - "What have you done?"

Buffy - "Guess what, Giles. I'm an evil bitch and I made an evil bitch army. You like?"

Giles really didn't know how to reply to that

Giles, with clear concern - "Buffy, it seems many of these vampires are slayers."

Buffy, flippantly - "Yeah, awesome, aint it?"

Giles - "How did you turn so many? How come the watchers don't have a clue about this? We never would've guessed at this."

Buffy - "Oh, that. I found a recipe for turning corpses into vampires. All it needs is some vampire blood and a few herbs and spices. Doesn't really matter how someone dies either, as long as they're not missing their head or heart. All I've done is secretly watch the slayers and turn them after they die. Not really that hard."

Giles - "And somehow you got your hands on Oberon."

Buffy - "So I did. How observant of you."

Giles looked to the other men, as if for help.

Angel - "Buffy, this is bad. This is sort of evil. This is a bad evil. Not a good evil."

Buffy, smiling - "Relax, guys, it's not like we're going to take over the world or anything. We've already had a meeting and voted against it. And I don't really have the time to deal with everyone right now. There's a lot of things on my plate right now. Like I need to confer with my generals. I still haven't done that."

Then the doors into her office opened again and she growled, which caused the messenger to freeze in her tracks.

Buffy - "Now what? This better be important."

The messenger's mouth seemed stuck halfway open and it didn't look like she was going to say anything.

Buffy, a bit calmer - "Speak."

Messenger - "Uh, this is about, uh, your friends. Tara and Willow."

Buffy - "What about them?"

Messenger - "Well, after they were turned, Giana had them moved to - "

Buffy - "WHAT!?!"

In a flash, Buffy was standing in front of the messenger, giving them the harshest glare imaginable.

Buffy - "Did you say they were turned?"

The messenger's head moved up and down so slowly, you could almost imagine a creaking sound.

Buffy - "Okay. Tell me right now. Who turned them?"

The messenger lowered her head down to her clipboard - "Some random vampires. Not us."

Buffy - "Why wasn't I told about this?!"

Messenger - "I th-thought you were."

Buffy growled and forced herself to turn away. The previously smiling bite victim moved away from the desk when Buffy turned towards it. It seemed no one wanted to be within arms reach of Buffy right now.

Buffy, to the wall - "Giana had them moved to the prison, didn't she?"

Messenger - "Yes. We thought you'd want them rehabilitated."

Buffy, much quieter - "Better than nothing."

Messenger - "But that's not my message. I was told to tell you that someone broke them free."

Buffy growled again - "What!? Who?"

Messenger - "We thought they were you. They looked like you."

Buffy looked to her twin on the couch then back to the messenger - "Lambronazi?"

Messenger - "We think so."

Buffy - "But why? She wouldn't do that. Not unless... Dawn."

Buffy took in a deep breath then closed her eyes and let it out.

Buffy, concentrating - "Dawn."

Her voice echoed in the not-so-large room with an odd tone. It echoed a few seconds longer than it really should have but wasn't exactly loud. In her minds eye, a picture of Dawn appeared, showing Buffy where she was.

Then she opened her eyes and nodded - "She's at my quarters. Fricken Dawn. What does she think she's doing?"

Buffy pushed a button on her intercom and spoke into it - "I want some guards sent to my quarters, NOW! Have them detain Lambronazi and my childe, Dawn. Watch out for the two prisoners. Take them all alive. Repeat, take them all alive."

Buffy was about to leave but looked back to the three men in the room.

Buffy - "Oh yeah, I do magic now too. You can complain about that later if you want. Like I said, too busy right now."

O-O-O-O

In Buffy's personal quarters, Willow and Tara were bundled up in chains and left in the middle of a large stone circle that someone had managed to build a house around. Meanwhile, Dawn was frantically searching through Buffy's exhaustive library of spell books.

Dawn - "She's got to have something in English! I can't speak any of these languages."

Willow mumbled something which was muffled by the thick leather strap covering her mouth. Tara seemed to hear her though and giggled along.

Dawn gave them a glare then went back to making a mess of Buffy's library, dropping books she couldn't read on the floor. While Dawn did this, Lambronazi walked over to a chest, the same chest from under Buffy's bed, and took an old, plain looking book from under it.

Lambronazi - "Dawn. Here."

Dawn, stopping her book dropping to look - "Isn't that your old diary?"

Lambronazi nodded as she broke the back cover in half, revealing some paper hidden within it. She held it out for Dawn to take.

Lambronazi, a little sadly - "You want to give them their souls back?"

Dawn was a little unsure but took it all the same. She carefully unfolded the old paper and squinted at it.

Dawn - "Holy cow. This gives vampires back their souls? Awesome! I can even read it. Uh, but.. Oh come on. Where are we going to get a large stone circle from?"

Lamb pointed the stone circle the two bound vampires were lying on.

Dawn, pointing to the paper - "Uh, yes, that's circular. But the diagram shows big stones around it, like Stonehenge."

Lamb rolled her eyes, walked over to a wall and tapped a large, odd looking stone support. Dawn frowned then looked around the room and realized that the room was oddly circular and had similar stone supports along the walls.

Dawn - "That's convenient. So what else do we need?"

O-O-O-O

Outside, there were some girl guards trying to find a way into Buffy's house.

Without warning, Buffy fell out of the sky and landed perfectly on her feet with a light thud.

Buffy - "What's going on? Why haven't you gotten in yet?"

A random guard - "They figured out how to turn on bomb shelter mode. We can't get in. It's all sealed."

Buffy put on a determined face - "Not from me, it isn't."

O-O-O-O

Inside.

Dawn - "But we don't have that key thing. Do we?"

Lambie held Dawn's head and whispered quietly.

Lambie - "Yes, we do."

Then Lambie gently kissed her while Dawn froze, too surprised to do anything very much. It didn't last long though as Lambie stopped when they heard a weird hissing like sound. Dawn turned to the offending sound and saw thick black smoke billowing through a keyhole on the front door. It quickly materialised into a Buffy shaped form with a Buffy shaped pissed off face.

Dawn, surprised yet again - "Buffy? How did you do that?"

Buffy, not happy - "Dawn. I'm not happy. What do you think you're doing?"

Dawn - "It's Tara and Willow! I just want them back to how they were!"

Lambie - "And they will be."

Dawn and Buffy looked over to see Lambie standing in the middle of the stone circle, holding a stake to her own heart.

Dawn - "Lambie, what are you doing with that?"

Lamb – "Everything is in place. It's time. I love you."

Dawn could only stare wide-eyed as Lambronazi staked herself in the heart..

Instead of dusting instantly, she turned yellow incandescent as she bowed with the pain. Her light grew blindingly bright as her form was consumed. A white shockwave came off the burning light and knocked Dawn off her feet. Buffy stayed on her feet but held up a hand to shield her eyes.

Outside, the white shockwave expanded outwards and struck down people far away from the spell. When it hit the walls of the caves, it bounced off, making the glyphs written on the walls glow as they struggled to repel the magic power. The white energy bounced around the caverns as more white shockwaves flew out from the spell.

Cries and screams of agony echoed in the cave, just as Willow and Tara's screams were heard through their bite guards. Outside, some tried to crawl to safety but there was nowhere to hide from the light.

From the floor, when Dawn looked back for where her childe was, Lamb was no more. She only saw Tara and Willow floating in mid air, the air arcing with electricity. More and more shockwaves flew out from the center of the room, keeping her down and sapping her strength. Light from the spell created a sputtering, dark portal near the roof. Buffy saw three figures tumble through and hit the floor hard. She didn't know what sort of magic this was but she didn't like it one bit.

She pushed herself forwards, fighting against the light but her movement was painfully slow. As she got closer, she felt like her skin was burning.

Then it ended abruptly and she fell forwards, onto her hands. She blinked a bit, letting her eyes readjust and remembered that she had visitors.

One of them groaned and got to their feet. Buffy roared and pounced on them, pinning them on their back. Then she realized that she knew them.

Buffy, not quite so snarly - "Willow?"

A dirt stained and startled Willow - "Buffy?"

Buffy looked across the room to see that there was another Willow in the room, still bound up in chains. There was also another Dawn and a weird blue haired girl.

The new Willow and Dawn were both wearing futuristic looking bike armor while the blue haired girl was wearing some other sort of body armor that didn't quite look manmade.

Buffy - "Oh, don't tell me. You're from the future."

Willow - "Uh. I guess I am."

The dirt stained Dawn - "Did we just fall into that portal too? I was told only one person could go through. But, it looks like we all went through."

Willow - "I guess I was wrong."

Dawn - "Buffy? Oh my god. Buffy."

Willow looked like she was about to ask Buffy to get off her but stopped and stared at Buffy's mouth. Her eyes went wide and she gave Dawn a wide eyed look of panic, which just made Dawn confused. Willow nudged her head towards Buffy, which still confused Dawn and caused Willow to roll her eyes.

Willow, a bit forced - "Why Buffy, what sharp teeth you have."

Buffy made a little yelp and closed her mouth to hide her teeth. Then she got off Willow, who backpedaled away from her and tried to give Buffy as much distance as possible.

Dawn, getting on the other side of the blue girl - "Lily, could do with some help here. Uh, Lily?"

The blue haired girl, Lily, seemed pretty incoherent.

Lily - "Where am I? Who are you people?"

Human Dawn - "Oh crap. That's not good. Lily, come on. Snap out of it."

Lily - "Why do you keep calling me lily?"

HumanDawn - "Okay, Illyria. We've got a vampire here. Uh.. two vampires?"

Though VampDawn didn't seem to be in any state to hurt them. She was having too much trouble trying to process all this.

Willow frowned - "Oh no. Not Dawn too. And that's me! That's me on the floor and.. Oh.. I .."

HumanDawn, rushing to free the bound girls - "Tara? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

Buffy - "Wait, stop! Don't free them. They're dangerous!"

When Buffy moved to stop Dawn, Willow's hands sparkled with some sort of electric looking magic which Buffy took as a threat.

Willow - "You stop! Not one more step."

Buffy, as Dawn went about freeing Tara - "Look, I don't think you know what you're doing."

Willow - "You're a vampire."

Buffy - "Uh, yes. Yes, I'm a vampire. But that's beside the point. I'm a good vampire."

Willow - "You've got a soul?"

Buffy - "Well, no. But I'm still good."

Willow gave her an unimpressed look.

Buffy - "Okay, I'm not that good. But I'm not that evil either."

Willow's look didn't change.

Buffy, lying badly - "Uh.. I've.. got a soul."

Buffy even grimaced a bit.

Buffy - "I usually lie a lot better."

By then, Dawn had freed Tara, who captured Dawn in her arms and bounced off a wall with enthusiasm as she kissed the bewildered girl. Willow lowered her guard at this and stared, totally dumbfounded.

Tara, on top of Dawn - "Mmm, you taste so good."

Then her game face turned on and Dawn screamed.

Before anything else could happen, Buffy blinked across the room and forcibly tore Tara from Dawn.

Tara, a little stupidly - "Uh, what?"

Buffy - "Wrong Dawn!"

Tara, only then noticing that there were two Dawns - "Oh. Uh. Oh."

Buffy, to Tara - "Behave. While I sort this out."

Tara nodded and Buffy helped HumanDawn to her feet, who very slowly walked backwards and stood next to HumanWillow, as if the redhead knew what to do.

Buffy, much more casually - "See, I'm not so bad."

Willow still looked suspicious of Buffy but a little more open now.

Dawn, to Willow - "Where's Xander?"

Buffy - "He's around here somewhere. He came through first. Actually, he came through six months ago, give or take."

Willow - "Did he turn you? Because I'm going to kick his ass if he did."

Buffy - "No. He didn't turn me. Angel did. Our time is a bit different from how you'll remember it. Something about time travelers changing the course of time simply by traveling through it."

Willow - "Right, temporal displacement. Wait, this is a pretty huge displacement."

Buffy turned to make sure Tara wasn't trying to kill her childe then turned back to Willow with a smile.

Buffy - "I don't know. I think it's kinda cool."

Dawn - "That's something Buffy would never say."

Buffy chuckled - "Yeah. I remember what I was like when I was human. Boring. Straight laced. Oh, and straight."

Buffy looked Willow up and down in a way Willow never thought she would. She sort of liked it but forced it those yummy feelings away and got back to business.

Willow - "Back to not another step or I'll fry your ass. I'm not going anywhere near a vampire."

HumanDawn hemmed a little, which made Willow frown a bit. Apparently Willow just fibbed.

Buffy, picking up the bound Willow on the floor by the collar - "That's sweet but I don't need you when I've got this Willow. Talking of which, Dawn, what the hell sort of crazy spell did you cast?"

VampDawn, sounding dead - "It was supposed to give them back their souls."

Buffy - "Well, it didn't work because..."

Buffy tilted her head as she looked the bound Willow in the eyes.

Buffy - "Willow?"

The bound Willow nodded.

Buffy - "Ohhh. Uh. Okay. Good job, Dawn. I think it worked. So, Tara too? That's nice."

Future Dawn - "Why the hell is Tara kissing the other me?"

Buffy - "Cos they're like total lesbians."

Not-bound Willow, laughing a little - "See, I told you."

Future Dawn - "That didn't count. We were drunk."

Future Willow, finding this a little funny - "And all the times after that?"

Future Dawn - "Bored."

Future Willow - "Heh. Right. So lemme get this straight. Buffy's a vampire. So is Dawn, Tara and me. Are any of the other scoobies?"

Buffy, trying to downplay something - "Umm. A few others, yes."

Future Willow - "Are any of them not?"

Buffy - "Oh sure. Giles isn't. I don't think. Umm. Does Wesley count?"

Willow groaned and nudged Illyria with a foot.

Willow - "Come on, Lily, get up. I really don't like this place and I could do with some back up."

Illyria - "Why do you people keep calling me weird names? My name is Fred."

Dawn - "What?"

Fred - "Who are you people? And can someone tell me where I am? Why do I feel so weird? And why is my hair blue?"

There were a few knocks on the front door and Buffy pushed a button. Large bars slid away from the front door and it was almost immediately opened.

Cordelia looked through the door and spotted Buffy.

Cordelia - "Buffy, there's -"

Then she stopped when she noticed there were two Dawns and two Willows.

Buffy - "They're from the future."

Cordelia - "Oh, okay."

Future Willow - "Please tell me Cordelia isn't a vampire."

Cordelia - "Uh..."

Buffy, trying to untie her Willow - "Cordy, can this wait?"

Cordelia - "Didn't you just see that spell thing?"

Buffy - "Yeah. I was right here when it happened. Where do you think these three future people came from?"

Cordelia - "Really? Well, it did more than just bring them here. Buffy, it's Spike. We think he's got a soul now."

Buffy, not expecting that - "Really? How can you tell?"

Cordelia - "He's a mess. He's crying and blubbering on. It's not pretty. Also, I'm sort of noticing a difference too."

Buffy - "How? You're supposed to already have a soul, remember? What haven't you been telling me?"

Cordelia - "Not that sort of difference. I'm feeling PMS. Quite a bit of it. You know, a sort of stomach cramp around here."

Cordelia's hand hovered around belt level. Buffy frowned as she tried to figure that out.

Cordelia - "And it's not just me. It's all the girls. All of them that weren't already slayers, that is."

Buffy - "Whoa, wait. What? You think you're a slayer now or something? Cordy, there's no spell that can turn you into a slayer. There's not even any spells that can turn potential slayers into slayers."

Future Willow - "That's not entirely accurate."

Buffy, to future Willow - "Okay. I'm sure you think you're all that when it comes to magic but I've got the experience here. I might look like the Buffy you know but I'm not."

Future Willow - "No, I think I know what I'm talking about."

Buffy stopped untying VampWillow, causing her to muffle something and hop a little to rebalance herself. Buffy walked up to the older, more warm blooded Willow and looked her straight in the eyes as she spoke.

Buffy - "I might look like a teenager but I've spent centuries in a hell dimension. Then I was send back in time and spent centuries in this dimension. I have over a millennia of experience and at least half of that was spent learning and mastering magic. So I know what I'm talking about. No one can just muck around with slayer powers. You can't give them. You can't take them. You can only pass them on when you die and that's it."

Willow smiled - "Actually, I've given slayer powers to potential slayers before."

Buffy blinked back - "Really?"

Willow, a little smugly - "Yup. I might not be as good as you with the ol' mojo but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

Buffy - "Really? how many?"

Willow - "How many what?"

Buffy - "How many potentials did you give slayer powers to?"

Willow - "Oh. Umm. All of them. It was a planet wide thing."

Buffy - "All of them? But that would've totally changed everything? Why didn't pirate Xander mention this before?"

Tara, as she finished untying a struggling Willow - "He mentioned it to me once. He was sort of drunk at the time though. I was more preoccupied with driving and stopping him from copping a feel than listening to what he was saying."

HumanDawn frowned as she put a hand to her stomach - "Actually, I feel a little PMS right now."

Willow frowned too - "Yeah, me too."

Once VampWillow was free, she ran at an unsuspecting Buffy so hard that she lifted them off the ground and slammed them into a wall with a loud thud that shook the room. Both Buffy and Willow were both shocked at that.

Willow - "Omigod. Buffy, I'm so sorry. I-I didn't know my own strength. Oh god, I'm so so sorry. I-"

Willow was shut up by Buffy very passionately kissing them.

Buffy, with a sort of crazy look in her eyes - "Willow. You're strong!"

Willow - "Yeah. I feel strong. I feel incredible."

Then they crashed together again, both of them unrelenting and unleashed.

FutureDawn, with obvious disgust - "Holy cow! That's... Oh my gawd! I don't need to see this. Can we be somewhere else?"

FutureWillow, not able to not stare - "What the hell?! We don't do that! What are they doing?"

Fred - "What the kung fu is going on?"

FutureWillow - "Oh, right. Fred. You've got a soul now too, don't you. Should've figured."

Fred - "What?"

Cordelia - "Yup. This has been one messed up day."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next episode


	48. 15a Waking the dead

Episode 15, Chapter A : Waking the dead.

Authors notes : Not much happens in this chapter. Much more in the next one.

O-O-O-O

Recap : Two weeks had passed since Lambronazi sacrificed herself. The spell she cast didn't just ensoul every vampire, demon and elder god in the underground city but it also gave everyone, including the men, slayer powers. It also tore a whole into the future where Dawn, Willow and Fred sent EvilXander back in time.

FutureBuffy had been possessed by the first evil and acted as the gatekeeper for this world, allowing in the face eater threat in from another dimension. But with the first evil without a body, the face eaters are no longer permitted and all them died sort of abruptly.

Now the face eaters knew they were facing a very real threat in this universe and were clamoring to find a new gatekeeper to let them in. That would take time and that's valuable time Buffy would use to prepare for the next attack.

But in the meantime, new evils were rising...

O-O-O-O

Somewhere dark and dank, a crowbar wedged its way between two stone doors and spread them apart with some effort. Light leaked in, revealing a bleak, stone mausoleum with a plain rectangular stone coffin in the middle of the room. As the stone doors were levered open, stale air and dirt dust billowed out, causing the tomb raiders to recoil and cough. But it didn't stop them and they moved in, flashlights ahead of them.

Businesslike, they lifted a large kettle like container up to the stone coffin and started pouring its red liquid contents over the solid stone cover. Then they stood back and waited. One of them used their flashlight to look at their wristwatch.

Then the stone coffin collapsed as it was pushed apart, leaving a ghostly white vampire where it stood.

Ancient vampire - "WHO WOULD WAKE ME!! ... Oh, hi Cindy. What's up?"

Cindy - "Geez, Jeanie. Cranky much?"

Jean removed her game face to reveal a relatively normal looking girl covered in white stone dust. Besides the dust, she was completely naked.

Jean - "Is this my wakeup call? It felt like I only slept two centuries. Just let me sleep a few more decades, I'll wake up after that, I promise."

Cindy laughed - "Sorry but this is your turn of the century wake up call. Those face eaters Buffy was telling about, they actually exist. So we're getting the slayers together. It's gonna be a blast."

Jean - "Really? Cool. So what century is it now?"

Cindy - "I can tell you now, we wear clothes in this century. I didn't know you slept naked."

Jean - "They wear clothes in this century too? I thought we'd be all civilized in the future."

Then Jean walked out of her tomb into the underground city under Sunnydale.

O-O-O-O

Elsewhere, Fred the eldar god was eating a salad. She was sitting at a table with the younger Xander, the older human Willow, the human Dawn, the vampire Dawn, the newly turned Succubus Buffy, Buddy, Faith, Fox, Lexx, Lara, Phoenix and Tara. Phoenix, in case you've forgotten, is Dawn's male alternate from the gender bender universe.

Yes, it was a pretty full table.

There was also a pleasant blonde, blue-eyed succubus sitting next Buffy called Heidi. All of them were on a break from training. If they weren't training themselves, they were busy training others.

On the surface world, martial law reigned and Sunnydale was forcibly evacuated, leaving just the supernatural and a few stragglers behind. Oz had been one of the stragglers but was found by a squad of slayers before he got in too much trouble. After he reunited with Willow, he discovered that vampire Willow wasn't quite what he signed on for. In many regards, it was as if his old life ended that night the demons attacked en masse.

Oz had taken pains to avoid his now dead friends.

On a lighter note, Fred's salad was quite good and she was actually enjoying it. Buffy, on the other hand, was staring at the plate of pancakes in front of her. They were perfectly cooked with a trail of maple syrup poured over them and a small dollop of butter on top. But they didn't look too appetizing to her despite her stomach growling.

FutureDawn - "I can eat them if -"

FutureBuffy, cutting her sister off - "No. I can do this."

Dawn - "They're getting cold."

Buffy held up a knife and fork, as if she was about to cut into the pancakes then sighed.

Buffy, pushing the plate along - "Fine, you can have them."

The blonde, blue eyed girl next to Buffy idly tapped her fingers on the table while giving Buffy a smug look.

Heidi, the blonde and blue eyed girl - "I told you it wouldn't do you any good."

Buffy - "And I told you, Heidi, I'm not going to feed from a… from a nazi."

Heidi - "I can wait."

Xander frowned - "She's a nazi? I fed from her a few days ago."

Heidi, a bit defensively - "It's not like I was oppressing any minorities or anything like that. I was spending all my time slaying vampires. I just happened to live in Germany during world war two."

Buffy - "So why does the other me keep calling you nazi-bitch?"

Heidi - "Oh, that. I'm just not her favorite childe. We never really bonded. I even kept trying to kill her after she turned me. We can both laugh about it now."

Xander frowned - "Really? I wonder why I didn't think of killing her."

Heidi - "But we're okay now. She only calls me that to flirt."

Buffy - "She told me you were part of a nazi secret super weapon project."

Heidi snorted - "Hardly. It didn't go anywhere. You can ask Spike if you don't believe me. He killed a good portion of the scientists involved."

Buffy - "Really? He sure gets around, doesn't he?"

Willow, a little awkwardly - "So, Buffy. We haven't really had a chat since the whole end of the world and time travel thing. Want to talk about being possessed by the First? Or your douche bag ex-boyfriend, the Immortal?"

Buffy - "Being possessed by the First sucked and the Immortal isn't a douche bag. He's not the big bad here. That was just something the First said to piss Xander off. So as much as Xander would enjoy it, we're not going on a mission to kill him."

Heidi - "Who's this Immortal guy you're talking about?"

Faith - "Yeah. Does he have a first name?"

Buffy - "He just has one name. Like Madonna. He's this absolutely awesome guy who controls the underbelly of Vatican city."

Heidi - "In the future?"

Buffy - "He should be doing it right now. He's been doing it for a century or more. Hey, maybe I should call him up. Could be funny."

Heidi - "Sorry Buffy but he might've been conning you. We run that underbelly."

Buffy - "And how would you do that from Sunnydale?"

Heidi - "Not me. We! Us. The slayers. We've got cells all around the world and the one in Vatican city rules it with a velvet covered iron fist. In fact, back when I was human, I visited Vatican city and I've never even heard of this immortal guy you're talking about."

Buffy - "Oh come on. You've got to have heard of him. He's awesome. Like he climbed Everest before anyone else did. Though, that's not so impressive when you realize that falling off it wouldn't kill him."

FutureDawn - "I'm pretty sure it'd hurt him though. Plus, he could probably freeze solid."

Buffy - "He was good friends with Buddha too."

Willow - "You buy that?"

Buffy - "Yeah. I actually do."

SuccubusXander - "Is he some sort of demon?"

Buffy, laughing - "What? No. He's ... he's not a demon. He's just immortal. He might be a god or something."

Dawn chuckled - "We do tend to attract those."

Buffy - "Honestly, I don't know what he is. He's just the immortal. I never really thought to ask that much about it. It never came up in conversation."

Dawn - "We're pretty sure he's not a demon. He looks human enough. Though, I've never seen him naked."

Buffy, frowning a little as she thought about this - "He's .. quite.. human looking when he's naked."

Willow and Dawn rose their eyebrows in union.

Willow - "Quite human?"

Buffy - "He just has some .. slight .. differences."

Dawn - "Like what? Ooh, did he have a tail?"

Buffy - "No, nothing like that. And it's nothing too weird. Well, except for that one thing. But he told me not to tell anyone about that. It's sort of personal."

Dawn - "What is it?"

Buffy - "Dawn, he told me not to tell anyone. Anyone includes you. I don't want him pissed at me for mentioning a certain embarrassing fact about his anatomy."

Dawn - "I've got it. He doesn't poop."

Buffy - "What?!"

Dawn - "Oh, it's not that? He's got three nipples?"

Buffy - "Dawn, I'm not telling you."

Dawn - "Odd number of toes?"

Buffy gave Dawn a sisterly glare of disapproval that didn't stop Dawn at all.

Dawn - "His knees can bend the wrong way?"

Buffy - "Give it up. I'm not telling you."

Dawn - "Oh. Well, now I feel better for not getting massively duped. But who IS the big bad?"

Buffy - "I don't know. The First knows but I can't remember what it knew. I never met him face to face."

Willow - "That sucks. No clues?"

Buffy shook her head grimly.

FutureWillow, - "So how is the night-creature thing going?"

Buffy gave Heidi a sullen look while Heidi smirked back.

Buffy - "It's only just bearable."

Heidi - "You'd find it a lot more fun if you fed the normal way."

Buffy, grimacing - "I don't really want to feed off men that way. I'm not the type to enjoy slutting around."

Faith put down her mug of blood to laugh a bit while Xander couldn't help but smile.

Faith - "That's something I never thought I'd hear from Buffy."

Buffy, ignoring Faith - "I still feel a bit numb but I think I'm doing okay. I'm doing a lot better than most post-evil vampires I've known. So I can't really complain. So what about you two? How are you handling being Slayers?"

Willow - "The nightmares are scary but everything else isn't that bad."

FutureDawn, hugging Willow around the shoulders - "And the sex is great."

Fox – "Hell yeah, Lexx can go all night now. It's awesome."

Buffy - "Totally didn't need to know that. And also, Willow, what the hell? Dawn?"

VampDawn - "She's jealous."

Buffy - "What? No. I don't think about Willow like that."

Faith - "That's something else I never thought I'd hear. But that means, if she's not jealous of Dawn then she's jealous of Willow."

Buffy, grimacing - "Faith! That's disgusting."

VampDawn, to Buffy - "Hey! That's not nice."

Tara - "Yeah. That really is not nice. You should apologize."

Buffy looked like she bit a lemon as she looked at Tara.

Buffy - "Apologize? Don't you see anything wrong with the image of me and Dawn .. together.. in bed.. in a naked way?"

She was waiting for some sort of understanding from the vampires but wasn't getting it, much to her confusion.

Fox - "Can I be there in a naked way too? Because that sounds like my sort of fun."

Faith nodded in eager agreement.

Buffy - "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you would have lots of fun but what about me and Dawn?"

Fox, a little offended - "Hey, I can get you both where you want to go. That's not a problem."

Buffy - "You guys really don't see anything wrong with Dawn and I hooking up?"

HumanDawn, frowning - "I don't think they do. Is this a vampire thing?"

VampDawn - "It's not like we would hook up but no, there's nothing technically wrong with it."

Buffy - "Of course there's something technically wrong with it. We're family."

VampDawn - "Uh, well, yeah. But it's not like the other Buffy has let that stop her. Like she totally stole Spike off me. It was so unfair. And she had sex with Xander. And let's not forget Angel. Can't forget Angel. Though, they don't do that anymore."

Faith - "She even had sex with that crazy Drusilla chick. Said she was awesome in the sack. Speaking of which."

Faith pinched Dawn hard on the elbow, making them yelp.

Dawn - "Hey, ow! I said I was sorry for killing Drusilla."

Buffy - "You dusted Drusilla? You? No, wait. Back to the topic at hand. We're not family in a fake vampire family way - "

Dawn - "Uh, yes, we are family in that way."

Buffy - "Okay, maybe we are. But what I mean is that we're family. Like actual family. We're sisters."

Buffy and the human versions of Dawn and Willow waited while the vampires tried to decipher this.

HumanDawn - "Again I ask, is this a vampire thing?"

Buffy - "I'm not sure. I'm not technically a vampire, you know."

Willow - "Yes, we know. You've already told us twenty times already."

Faith - "This must be a human thing. B obviously hasn't been turned for long enough. She's still thinking like a stick-in-the-mud human. What she needs is some good, hard girl-on-girl action."

Buffy - "I don't have anything against girl-on-girl action. It's just not my sort of thing. But I do have something against incest."

VampDawn - "How does incest come into it?"

HumanDawn - "Hello. We're sisters."

VampDawn - "But not like actual sisters."

HumanDawn - "Yeah, we are actual sisters."

VampDawn - "Except we're not."

HumanDawn - "Are all vampires stupid? Because, yes, we are."

VampDawn - "You're the stupid one. Buffy isn't my sister. You're crazy."

Willow, placing her hand on Dawn's shoulder - "Maybe she isn't actually Buffy's sister."

Buffy, just as confused as the Dawn's - "How would that work? If she's not my sister then whose sister is she? Faith's?"

Faith - "What?"

Buffy - "I guess not. Vampire Dawn, do you have any sisters?"

VampDawn - "Well, I did, up until the point where Buffy killed my family."

Buffy - "What?!"

VampDawn - "Yeah. That's what I thought. Like, random much? But that was way back when she was evil. Now she's not quite so evil. But still a bitch."

Buffy - "That's .. not nice."

VampDawn just grinned back.

HumanDawn - "Okay so, with you, Buffy killed your family?"

VampDawn - "And then turned me. Then she forgot about me and I lived on the streets for a while until the Scoobies found me and then I lived with Buffy's mom."

HumanDawn, frowning - "Right. Okay. Weird. That didn't happen for me."

VampDawn - "I figured that. So what's this thing about you being sisters? Ooh! Are you two nuns? Do I become a nun?"

HumanDawn - "Something like that. Long story. Might tell you later."

Willow - "That is bizarre. We knew there would be differences but that?"

HumanDawn - "It makes sense. After all, my back story can be anything."

Faith, again - "Huh?"

HumanDawn - "Long story, tell you later."

Buffy - "First Dawn's life turning out so differently and you don't suppose something happened to the Immortal, do you?"

Willow - "Like what? You said it yourself. He can't die."

Buffy - "Yeah but maybe his immortality is a curse. Maybe it's like a vengeance curse. Maybe in this time, he never got cursed so he never became immortal."

Heidi - "Oh, actually we've got someone like that here in Sunnydale."

Buffy brightened up - "Really? Here?"

Heidi - "Yeah. A slayer. Her watcher had her think that all demons were evil. Then she slaughtered a family of half-demons. The half demons called down a vengeance curse on her. Now they've got big horns, red skin and a full on tail. Apparently they're stuck like that forever."

Buffy, frowning - "Uhh. Don't think that's him."

Heidi - "If this immortal does exist, he's not running Vatican city. Or maybe he's just given himself a better name."

Buffy - "That's possible, I guess. So what about the rest of you? How are you dealing with the whole slayer gig?"

Faith - "I've been a slayer for a while."

Buffy, sighing - "I know that, Faith."

Lara - "I don't know about the rest of you but I'm enjoying it."

Faith - "Heh, I bet you are. Would help you keep up with Buddy there."

Lara, frowning - "Actually, my sex life hasn't changed that much. We've always been pretty energetic."

Buffy, a little confused - "How did you two meet again?"

Lara and Buddy gave each other a small look then gave Buffy matching smiles.

Buddy - "We met at a girl guide, boy scout mixer. I helped her get a badge in cooking."

Buffy, buying it - "Oh. Nice."

Xander - "I don't know about you guys but I'm actually more tired since I became a slayer."

Lexx - "Yeah, same. Though, I don't think I'm a slayer. I'm still as weak as I was before."

Heidi - "Not all Slayers get super strength."

Buffy - "What? Since when?"

Heidi - "It's rare but some slayers don't have super strength. Like how some don't have enhanced reflexes. Most do have it but a few don't."

Faith - "Like how I don't have proper radar? And I don't get prophecy dreams either."

Heidi - "That's right. Besides, you're probably just tired with all the training we're putting you through."

Xander - "Entirely possible. Oberon and training, phew, it's hard work."

VampDawn - "I still think Jedi girl is trouble."

Xander - "And thanks for your concern. Though, weird thing, since the spell, she's been feeling ill. I think that spell might've done something more than just dishing out souls and slayer powers."

Lexx - "I've been feeling sort of ill too."

Willow - "That's probably just your slayer radar working. Mine makes me feel a bit queasy sometimes."

Xander, almost as a dare - "Have you been throwing up in the morning though?"

Willow - "Uh. No. Your new crazy girlfriend has been?"

Xander - "Yes and trust me, it's absolutely disgusting. She's throwing up blood. Black, icky blood. It's not pretty."

Heidi, frowning - "Vampires don't throw up. I don't think they can. Their gag reflex doesn't work properly anymore."

Fox, giving Heidi a lecherous look - "No gag reflex? That's good to know."

Lexx, smirking - "Shut up, Fox. You already knew that."

Xander - "Anyway, some pint-sized nurses are trying to figure out what's wrong with her. They say she's in even better health than normal so they think it might be stress related."

Faith - "She is stark crazy. That's probably stressful."

Xander - "Actually, they think I'm the one causing her stress. It's been suggested that I shouldn't be meddling with Oberon's inner workings. They think of her as their big guns."

Willow frowned and mumbled - "I thought I was the big guns."

Lexx - "I haven't thrown up yet but there have been a few close calls. It's a weird feeling though. I'm hungry but don't want to eat anything at the same time."

Heidi - "I haven't heard of anything like that before. Normally, we're either hungry or not hungry. That's just plain strange. Maybe you should get that checked out."

A naked girl walked by and kept going, catching the attention of the entire table.

HumanDawn - "Uhh... That girl was naked."

Heidi, watching the naked girl walk off - "That she was. Nice butt. A bit skinny though. She probably just woke up from the big sleep."

Buddy - "Talking of which, how is the Queen of the Damned? The big bad Buffy? Anyone seen her lately? I haven't seen her since we first got here."

Faith - "Same. Dawn?"

VampDawn shook her head.

Heidi - "Last I heard she had broken yet another bed with that red head of hers. I don't know how many she's gone through but I've already helped move two for her. I'm not helping with a third, she can move them herself."

VampDawn - "You should just forget beds and get those two a trampoline. They broke our bed at home too."

Tara - "That did give you an excuse to snuggle with me for a while. That was before, when Faith still scared you."

Faith gave Dawn a steely glare - "I still scare her. Still, a trampoline is a good idea, ratgirl."

Dawn gave Faith back her own steely glare.

Willow - "Ahh, it's been a while since I've seen a famous Faith and Dawn stare off. Hmm. Odd. They usually started when Faith steals chips off Dawn's plate. Though, this time, there's no chips."

Faith looked to be losing this staring competition but found herself unable to look away while Dawn grinned in a slightly twisted way.

Willow, frowning – "That's different too."

Faith, straining – "Get out of my head!"

VampDawn blinked hard with a bright smile and the hypnotic connection stopped, leaving Faith breathing hard but still glaring at Dawn.

Faith – "Hey, I told you before, that's cheating!"

Dawn – "It's not my fault it's so easy to get into your eyes like that. You should learn to keep them shut."

Faith, squinting – "One of these days, Dawn, I'm gonna get you back for nabbing Tara."

Willow – "Wait, what? She stole Tara from YOU?!"

HumanDawn thought this hilarious - "Really? Holy cow."

Buddy, laughing - "Phoenix, you're gay?! Explains a lot."

Phoenix - "Shut up, you're gay! But can you blame her? Just look at Tara. She's awesome. She could turn any girl into a lesbian."

Lexx, her eyes raking up and down Tara - "I think he's right. I'm feeling awkward, life changing things occurring within my loins."

Tara shrunk in on herself a little, not that comfortable being the center of attention all of a sudden.

Heidi, rolling her eyes - "Of course Dawn's a lesbian. She got turned by Buffy."

VampDawn - "Uh, what?"

Heidi - "Everyone Buffy turns, turns into a lesbian. I didn't even know what a lesbian was until I was turned. Then blam! I couldn't take my eyes off them. It didn't even make sense. I can't even feed from girls."

VampDawn - "I'm more straight than gay. I just love Tara a lot."

Fox - "Sounds gay to me."

VampDawn - "It's not like that. It's a spiritual bond."

Tara - "It's true. She's not that gay."

Buddy, smirking - "You know, Phoenix, if you want to explore your spiritual bonds with me, I'm sure Lara won't mind."

Fox - "Yeah, she gets off on watching spiritual bonds."

Phoenix looked away embarrassed as he drank some blood, trying to give the impression that he wasn't hearing the conversation.

Lexx - "I think they make a cute couple. Two close friends who happen to have sex together. There's nothing wrong with that."

Buffy - "This has to be one of the worst conversations I've ever been a part of. I totally didn't know Dawn was gay. There weren't any signs."

FutureDawn - "I'm not that gay. I just don't have many options. Me and Tara, I can sort of understand how that would work. She was my best friend. And Willow, she was just... there. She was convenient."

FutureWillow, sarcastic - "Thanks."

FutureDawn - "You know what I mean. I'd much rather have sex with a guy than Willow but there weren't many guys available at that particular time."

FutureWillow, correcting her - "Those particular times."

Lexx - "At least we know Phoenix has options. If he really wanted, he could come to me. Also, Angel and Spider are both sweet on him. He's a very likeably guy."

Buffy suddenly grabbed the table roughly and made a stifled growl, catching everyone's attention.

Buffy, wincing - "Sorry. Hunger pains. I should probably go drain this little trollop."

Heidi - "Teehee."

HumanDawn, frowning - "Weird. You enjoy fed from?"

Heidi nodded.

VampDawn - "Actually, it's awesome. Me and Tara do it all the time."

Tara - "Strange. Normally, I'd feel blood rushing to my face by now but nope. Nothing."

Heidi - "I still think she should be able to feed herself but I don't mind that much. It feels pretty good."

Fox - "Nazi bitch is right, girl Buddy. I know your first time can be scary but come on, girl. You need to get it over with. You don't want to die a virgin, do you?"

Buddy - "Fox. Give her a break. If she wants her first time to be special then I say we let her."

Buffy - "Guys, I'm not a virgin."

Lexx - "Seriously? Cos we were pretty sure."

Buffy - "I'm not. Honestly. I've had tons of boyfriends."

FutureDawn – "Five. Five boyfriends is not tons."

Buffy – "Actually, it's more like six."

FutureDawn, sarcastically – "Which converts to automatic tonnage."

Fox - "Then what's the problem? Succubae live on sex. You're one of them. You obviously need sex. You and me could just pop behind those dumpsters over there and I could give you a feed."

Buffy groaned - "Whose stupid idea was it to make Faith a guy?"

Fox - "Huh?"

Faith - "What's that supposed to mean? Fox is cool."

Lexx, defending her sire - "Yeah. He's just trying to help you out."

Buffy, not wanting an argument - "Never mind."

Buddy - "You're not a lesbian, are you? Because I'm cool with that if you are. I think they're awesome."

Buffy - "What? No. Why would you, of all people, think that?"

Buddy shrugged - "Your sexuality can change when you're turned. Like I never used to like guys."

Buddy, at Buffy's puzzled look - "I'm bi."

Fox - "Same here. Though, the only guy I've had sex with so far is Buddy. We really need more proper guys on our team. No offence, Phoenix."

Fox gave Xander a smirk, which Xander found more terrifying than appealing.

Buffy - "Oh my god. You and… That is so wrong."

Buddy - "I don't see why."

Buffy - "He's like Faith. You're supposed to be like me. Me and Faith don't get along. Especially not like that.

Faith - "What? Since when? Me and B are tight. We're best buds."

VampDawn - "Actually, I think Buffy and Willow are best buds. Not you and B."

Faith, with a small growl - "Whatever. Willow's just a phase."

HumanDawn - "So Willow and Faith still don't get along. That's still normal."

Fox - "Back to the pressing matter, me and Buffy, beast with two backs? Great idea, right?"

HumanDawn - "A fricken scary idea. That's what it is."

Willow, to Buffy, trying to be helpful - "I'm sure Spike wouldn't mind helping you out."

Buffy - "Please, let's not start that up again. It was painful enough the first time around. Also, Faith, my best friend? I doubt it somehow."

Fox - "You know what you could do. If you can find that spell for swapping bodies then Buddy could swap with Buffy and he could do the deed for her."

Buffy - "What?"

Lara - "I'm actually from this dimension. I was called Larry. But I swapped bodies with my alternate. I was a guy, now I'm a girl. And girl me is now a guy."

A few people stared at her, trying to get their heads around that.

Buddy, considering this - "That's got some promise. I don't think I'd want to do it permanently but it would be fun for a while."

Willow - "Hold on. Body swapping? That sort of magic can be dangerous. It's not something to just play around with."

Lara - "It normally isn't something to play with but the rules don't apply so much when you're swapping with an alternate."

FutureDawn, looking in Phoenix's direction - "Really? So I could -"

Lara - "Yup."

Buffy, to Buddy - "You would seriously be interested in swapping bodies with me, to have sex with guys?"

Buddy nodded with a bright grin.

Fox, grinning too - "I'll have a piece of that. How's about it, Bud? Wanna bend over and grab some bed railing?"

Buddy - "Fox, that's a quick way to break a bed, remember?"

Fox - "Oh yeah. We really need stronger beds. Or trampolines."

Faith - "Why don't we all swap? Me and Fox, Xander and Lexx. Come on, it'll be wicked. How's about it, Xander? Want a little Faith inside you?"

Xander's eyes went wide - "No! I really don't want that."

Faith, trying puppy dog eyes – "I'll be gentle."

Xander – "You're a horrible liar, Faith. No way am I changing sexes around you."

Faith pouted then smiled up at Heidi.

Heidi shrugged good-naturedly – "Sure. Why not."

Faith - "Now we should get Sam, Cordy and that Harry potter wannabe Willard and get him on the action."

Buddy chuckled - "I don't think Willard would be interested."

Tara, frowned - "I don't know about this. It doesn't sound that safe."

HumanWillow nodded - "I'm with Tara on this. It sounds like an alarming abuse of magic to me."

Tara - "Like, if Dawn the human changes with Phoenix the vampire. She might bite someone without realizing it. There are all sorts of weird vampire instincts she wouldn't be used to."

Faith - "So have Human Red change with Vamp Red. That way, human Ratgirl in vamp Ratboy won't kill her."

HumanDawn, to Willow - "That could work, right? Plus, haven't you ever wondered what it's like to be a vampire?"

Willow, a little high pitched – "Uh. No."

HumanDawn – "Yup. That's you lying. Come on, please? I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a guy. I know you're not into guys that much but pretty please? What's the worst thing that can happen?"

O-O-O-O

Half an hour later.

Buffy, Queen of the underworld, studied the now-not-so-human Willow who was wearing a vampire's game face.

Buffy – "You know, if you calm down, that will come off."

Future Willow, a little peeved off – "Yes. I know that."

Buffy – "Urm… yeah, they're stuck like that. Sorry."

Willow, giving FutureDawn a venomous sideways look. – "What's the worse that can happen? Goddamnit, Dawn. This is so cliché."

Newly vamped Dawn – "You really can't fix this?"

Buffy – "How long have you been like this?"

Other Dawn - "Half an hour or so. Does that matter?"

Buffy – "Yes. It matters. And no, I can't fix it. Maybe if you told me you were abusing magic in the first five minutes but half an hour? No, you're dead. Undead. Whatever. It's irreversible. Whose stupid idea was this?"

Everyone looked to Faith and Fox.

Faith, pointing a finger at Fox – "It was his idea."

Fox gave her a frown but didn't argue the point.

Fox – "It's not that bad. So they're vampires. These things happen. It just means they can't go out during the daytime now. It's not that big a deal."

SuccubusBuffy frowned – "You guys don't have the sunscreen tattoos?"

Buddy – "What are those?"

SuccubusBuffy – "Well, instead of using Aztec amulets for protection against the sun, we just tattoo some runes on your butt and you can walk around in sunlight and use mirrors like normal. It doesn't necessarily have to be on your butt. I just like putting it there. It's kind of my signature."

Not from the future Dawn - "Now you tell us!"

Lexx groaned – "Aww, how come we didn't have that? That's totally not fair."

Buffy - "You can get them from the naughty tentacle club. It's on the west side. Big giant neon sign of a purple octopus on top. Can't miss it. It's where we do most of our tattoo based magic abuse down here."

Lexx - "Oh. Which way is west again?"

Buffy pointed west and Lexx nodded, making a mental note.

Buffy - "Hey, where's the other me? I wanna talk to her about something."

Tara pointed to Buddy, sitting alone at a table.

Tara - "She's in Buddy's body. We can't seem to find Buddy. He's probably..."

Buffy - "On a sex spree. Gotcha."

Buffy, in Buddy's body - "I don't really want to stand up. I feel sort of weird."

Buffy - "Hmm. I was going to get the other me but Willow and Dawn from the future will have to do. Follow me. I need you to talk some sense into your Xander."

Fox – "Okay but after this, we are going straight back to swapping sexes. I didn't get a turn."

Faith – "Darn tooting."

Most of the Scoobies followed Buffy, Queen of the underworld. But Xander was distracted by Buffy in Buddy's body when he/she made a "pssk" sound.

The others walked away, giving a little privacy to Xander and the Buffy trapped in a man's body.

Xander - "Yeah?"

Buffy - "This is awkward. I'm, uh... I'm hard. Down there. Like rock solid. It's so hard it's painful."

Xander - "I didn't need to know that."

One of the Dawns, yelling from a distance away - "Me either!"

Buffy growled - "Stupid vampire hearing. Sorry. But it's true what guys say. These things really do have a mind of their own. So how do you get rid of it?"

Xander - "Well, there's the obvious way and... Try thinking about baseball."

Buffy tried this and frowns.

Buffy - "Uh, is it wrong if I like baseball? Like, really like it?"

Xander, frowning - "Hmm. Try penguins."

Buffy tried that for a few seconds and smiled.

Buffy - "Ahh. That works. Sweet relief."

She closed her eyes, smiled and thought of arctic animals waddling around in a completely unerotic nature.

O-O-O-O

End of actionless scene. Continued in next chapter which will probably be chockablock full of mindless action.


	49. 15b bring in the clones

Episode 15, Chapter B : Bring in the clones.

Authors note : This actually references earlier works of mine quite a lot. Just thought I'd warn you..

Warning : MASSIVE crossovers ahead. From this point onwards, this fanfic will borrow heavily from some of my previous work on "Outtaverse" and thusly, from other TV shows besides BTVS. Because of this, you might want to read the outtaverse chapters found under my profile or you might get a tad confused.

For those who have or just want the gist of how the Outtaverse works, here's a small outtaverse recap.

Everyone thinks Buffy is gay except for Buffy. Riley left her because of it.

Faith is in love with Buffy, went through most of her evil phase like in the show but got chipped like Spike before she could hassle Angel too much in LA.

Xander and Anya died on their wedding day but Xander is still hanging around, haunting Faith, for some unknown reason.

Dawn has a massive crush on Faith but settled for Kennedy who is the "current slayer." Dawn has also had her personality merged with Tell, an echo. The Dawn/Tell hybrid looks just like Dawn but with more piercings.

Echoes are relatively fast healing, millennia old, indestructible clones of the devil but are seriously lacking in power for an upper level demon. That is, they're about as strong as a human.

Twist is also an echo, the only other one in their dimension, and he likes getting paid for sex.

Tara has a strange psychic connection to the "scythe", a bright red axe which you might recognize from season 7 of BTVS. Through the scythe, she can access several powers that she couldn't before, such as seeing auras instead of just feeling them, hearing radio transmissions and occasionally finding crashed alien spaceships. Supposedly, the scythe can also kill echoes. But that hasn't been very successful yet. Fortunately, she's not trying to kill any right now.

Willow had gotten possessed by a Goa'uld, one of those with aliens off "Stargate". You know, the funny eels with delusions of Egyptian god grandeur. Because of this, and consequent interactions with the SGC, she's gotten her hands on some goa'uld technology. Mainly a "pushy" gauntlet and a "healing" gauntlet.

Due to some spectacular culinary misadventure by Harmony the vampire, almost all the vampires in California are addicted to a pacifying chocolate called vampcandy. The Vampcandy is a slight recipe rewrite on the bandcandy from the BTVS episode "Bandcandy".

Harmony is also a slayer while still being a vampire and chocolate addict. This was possibly caused by the vampcandy. Though, Faith would say it's because she had sex with her in Xanders body that one time. Also, Harmony is boffing Giles and vice versa, despite the weird looks it gets both of them. She also "helps out" at the magic box.

The Scoobies have also met the charmed ones from the show "Charmed" and a few other witches which would fit into that show.

Phew. That's most of the main points to remember. I totally forgot how much crap I wrote for that fanfic. Heh.

O-O-O-O

Buffy led a few of the scoobies to one side of the underground city, through some security doors and past some tanks.

FutureDawn - "Tanks?"

Buffy, smiling - "Yeah. Tanks. You think I'm kidding around down here? You thought I'd just get a kick out of turning lots of slayers? No, I'm really making a small army down here."

FutureDawn - "But tanks?"

Buffy – "They have their uses."

Buddy - "Can I drive one?"

Buffy - "No! You've got to go through training for that. Besides, slayers are better as foot soldiers. We train children for the tanks."

Buddy - "But isn't everyone now a slayer? Come on."

Buffy gave him an unimpressed look and kept on walking, shielding her eyes as she walked by some workers arc welding metal. She lead them into another large warehouse which didn't have tanks but a rather large, supernatural looking stone ring standing upright in the middle of the room.

Willow - "Magic portal?"

Buffy nodded - "Pretty obvious, isn't it?"

Xander with an eyepatch turned around, with his arms folded, looking sort of annoyed.

Xander - "Can we get this show on the road now?"

Lexx - "Hey, I have an eyepatch! I look cool."

Xander blinked his one eye at Lexx, having not met them beforehand.

Buffy - "Xander, meet Lexx. Lexx is an alternate you, just female. Also, alternate me, alternate Faith, alternate Dawn."

Buffy pointed to Buddy, Faith and Phoenix respectively and got a frown from Xander.

Xander - "And where did they come from?"

Buffy - "Their world got attacked by face eaters and they jumped ship. Talking of which, let me explain what this big stone circle does."

Willow, quickly - "Goes between dimensions?"

Buffy stopped herself and gave Willow a long look.

Buffy - "Okay, yes, it does go between dimensions, miss smarty pants. More specifically, we've tapped it into the same interdimensional nexus that rests between this world and the world our sex-swapped friends hail from. For those who remember that little eldar god incident, it, or they, created dimensional portals between our two worlds. But here's something we didn't know. It was making portals to quite a few other worlds at the same time. As far as we can tell, it's connected to thirteen different worlds. Here's something else we didn't know. When the eldar god died, it didn't close the connections. We think the face eaters are using those connections to jump between worlds."

Future Xander - "Which is where I come in."

Buffy, sternly - "Or not."

Future Xander - "We need people to go through the portals to recon. We don't know what the other worlds are. One of them is probably where the face eaters originally come from."

Buffy - "Yes, we need people to check them out but it doesn't have to be you. You only got your soul back last week. You've got to give yourself some time to recuperate."

Xander - "Buffy, I'm the perfect candidate. I'm not really cutting as a slayer. So I'm more expendable than the rest of you. And if I meet any alternates on the other side, I'll know most of them. Besides, if I get in trouble, I'll just drink one of those potions and I'll pop right back here."

FutureDawn - "You drink a potion and it teleports you back? That's weird."

FutureWillow nodded - "A little. But Buffy's right, Xander. It doesn't have to be you."

Xander clenching his fists - "I just want to do something. Anything."

Willow, frowning - "Alright. But you can't go alone. I'll go with you."

Dawn - "And me."

Buffy - "Whoa, you two definitely can't go. You just got vamped half an hour ago. You're not even sun proofed yet. Besides, all three of you have future knowledge. What if it went badly? If we lost all of you then that would be a massive set back."

Tara - "I'll go."

PresentDawn - "What?"

Tara - "I'll make sure he doesn't get in any trouble."

Faith - "Yeah, me too. The mystery machine on the road again! Yeehaw!"

Xander - "I don't need babysitters."

Tara - "You're not going without us. Not in your state."

PresentDawn - "If Tara's going, I'm going."

Buffy - "Oh no, you're not going either. You still haven't passed basic training."

PresentDawn - "What? I'm just having trouble with the pole fight on the log section. The girl in charge of that hates me. But that's it. Really, when would that come in useful?"

Buffy - "Don't care, you're not going."

Tara - "It'll be okay, Dawn. We'll just go in, look around then come back. We'll be back before you know it."

Faith - "Besides, there's no way Tara is getting killed when I'm around. At least, not until I steal her back off you."

Buffy, to Faith and Tara - "Are you guys sure? We have no idea what you'll be facing."

Lara - "Hey, I should probably check out a few of these dimensions too. I did sort of help put us in this mess."

Buddy - "That's a good idea. You, me and Fox? We should probably get some of those sun tattoo things first. They might run on different clocks in the other dimensions."

Fox nodded in a so-so way - "I'm up for it."

Buffy shook her head – "You can't go. The potions we'll give the away teams only take them home. Since you're from another dimension, they would take you back there. I don't want to do that just yet. But don't worry. We're not low on volunteers for this."

From computer workstations around the room, tweed wearing watchers of many descriptions came out of the woodworks and handed metal flasks to Xander, Faith and Tara. One of the watchers hooked up a small electronic device to the portal.

Willow - "Watchers?"

Buffy - "We sort of need them for this. Undead can't access the magics required for this portal. It's been vampire proofed."

Willow frowned - "And what did she just stick up there? It looks like an ipod."

Buffy - "Technomancy. Saves your throat going hoarse from lots of chanting."

Willow - "I'm familiar with the concept."

A rigid watcher with a PDA - "Everything seems to be working, Buffy. Shall we open it up?"

Buffy nodded - "Log which worlds they visit, just like we planned."

Watcher - "Of course. Opening now."

He pressed a small plastic stylus to his PDA and the portal started rumbling. Then a bright purple and black whirlpool type effect sprung to life in the middle of the portal. It was sucking quite hard, pulling papers up into it, much to the horror of watchers who were madly holding their paperwork down.

Buffy, shouting over the loud sucking - "Don't spend more than twenty minutes. Go in, look around, come back. That's it. Got it?"

Xander - "Got it."

Xander gave Faith and Tara one last look and then jumped towards the portal. It sucked him out of midair in quite an alarming fashion.

Faith and Tara gave themselves a look then both of them jumped together, colliding in mid air as the portal sucked them in.

Then they landed in a tangled mess on the other side. As they got up, they both groaned in pain, Tara holding her nose, Faith holding her forehead.

Xander tilted his head at them, seemingly unharmed. Behind him, the blowing portal faded away, leaving behind just papers caught on the wind.

Xander - "Here we are, wherever we are."

They were on a hill, overlooking much of Sunnydale..

Xander - "Sunnydale. Hmm. It seems relatively intact."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else in that dimension called the Outtaverse.

Buffy and Willow were having a private conversation in the training room at the magic box. As much as Faith goaded Harmony, she wouldn't eavesdrop on them.

Faith - "I bet they're going to make out."

This made Tara half-glare at her, not actually finding it that funny.

By the door to the training room, Xander was eavesdropping. Only Faith could see him for some reason. He was supposed to have given up the ghosting months ago but he was still hanging around for some reason.

Xander, shaking his head - "They're not making out yet."

In the training room, Buffy was pacing while Willow was sitting down, waiting nervously but patiently.

Buffy - "Okay, there is something I want to get off my chest."

Willow, a little high pitched - "About me?"

Buffy - "Huh? No. No. Not at all. There's nothing wrong with you. This is about me."

Willow - "Oh."

Buffy - "I've had these feelings recently and -"

Willow, interrupting Buffy again - "About me?"

Buffy gave Willow a stern look.

Willow - "Oh, not about me. Sorry. Go on."

Buffy - "It's actually about Faith. Faith and I have always had this..."

Willow - "Sexual tension?"

Buffy - "No. Uh. Maybe. Umm. I've always had this really confusing... what's the word? She makes me feel sort of..."

Willow - "It's okay, Buffy. We've suspected it for a long time."

Buffy - "I'm not gay. Not really. Stop giving me that look. Seriously, I'm not gay."

Willow - "So, this thing with Faith, what are we talking about?"

Buffy - "Umm. I have this sort of attraction to Faith. But it's not like I have with guys. It's nothing like that. Well, actually..."

Willow - "It is a bit like that?"

Buffy frowned with a conflicted look on her face then looked away and nodded.

Buffy, with her eyes closed - "I just don't understand it. Part of me actually wants to get naked with her. I don't get why."

Willow's face was sort of unreadable as she let Buffy go on, while Buffy waited for her to say something.

Buffy - "But I'm not gay."

Willow, a little uneasy - "Uh, okay."

Buffy - "No, seriously, see, that's the thing. If I was gay, I'd be fine with it. I'd look at hot women all the time and call them hunks and stuff."

Willow - "I don't really do that either."

Buffy, frowning - "Good point. But this thing I'm feeling, it's just with Faith. It's like I've got this big ball of emotions and they're all directed at Faith. It's not just crazy sex either. It's other crazy things. I want to do all sorts of things to her and a lot of them aren't nice."

Willow thought about it and smiled.

Willow - "I can relate to the not nice parts."

Buffy - "Even when we were fighting to the death, I didn't really want to kill her. But now I've got this hunger to kill her. I've got this need to protect her and another need to not trust her. Willow, I've become irrationally obsessed with Faith. Not in a healthy way, either. It's kind of freaking me out. I think it might be a slayer thing."

Willow - "Oh. So, Kennedy...?"

Buffy - "Oh hell no. Thank god for that. And definitely, DEFINITELY not Harmony. Despite some of the very nice memories I've gotten off Giles, I'm quite sure I'll never think about Harmony that way."

Willow nodded a little as she digested this information.

Buffy, on a lighter note - "You know, I actually do feel a little better after talking about this."

Willow - "So you haven't talked to Faith about this?"

Buffy snorted - "No."

Willow - "Maybe you should."

Buffy, shaking her head - "I'd prefer she doesn't know."

Willow, nervously - "I just thought, maybe, you could play some of those fantasies out."

Buffy, wide-eyed - "Willow, I'm not having sex with Faith!"

Willow - "If you kill her, I won't mind."

Buffy, sighing - "I can't do anything to her. She loves me."

Willow - "Huh? Since when?"

Buffy - "Crap! Willow, you have to swear that you won't mention this to anyone else."

Willow, amazed and laughing - "Faith loves you? When did this happen? Where the hell was I at the time?"

Buffy - "It's not funny. She really loves me. I'm like her one true love or something. It's probably the reason for my current predicament. I've just spent too long around all those love vibes from her and they've gotten under my skin."

Willow was now crying with laughter.

Buffy, smiling a little - "Okay, maybe it's a little funny. But come on, I'm not going to use her."

Willow, talking between laughs - "Oh man. That's so messed up!"

Buffy folded her arms and waited for Willow to finish her laughing fit.

Willow, looking up at Buffy as she bowed with laughter - "Hey, you've already got your foot in the door. You could totally get some and get gone."

Buffy, decidedly not laughing - "I'm not going to do that to her. You just want some hot slayer on slayer action to happen, don't you?"

Willow, actually lying quite well - "Wha? No! I'm just saying, you could get it out of your system. What could go wrong?"

Buffy - "Lots could go wrong. It would be weird."

Willow, standing back up to face Buffy more seriously - "Buffy. I'm going to tell you this straight. You've got feelings for Faith. From what you just said, Faith has feelings for you. You're not seeing anyone right now. So why not? If it's weird then just let it be weird."

Buffy, squinting at Willow - "Am I really talking to Willow here? Or are you possessed?"

Willow - "You only have two options here. Do something with Faith or don't do something with Faith. It's your choice. If doing nothing isn't working..."

Neither said anything else and they stayed like that for a while until they heard the front door to the magic box chime and distressed crying. This alarmed them and they left the training room to find out what was going on.

Kennedy had gently rested Dawn on the table in the middle of the room. She was crying and bleeding all over the place, obviously in a lot of pain.

Dawn, grabbing Faith's arm - "Get Twist."

Faith, slipping free of her grip - "Yeah, okay. I'll get twist."

Kennedy, to Faith - "He's already on his way. Get the scotch from behind the counter."

Giles came around the counter with the scotch and twisted the cap off.

Giles, putting it to Dawn's mouth - "Here."

Dawn - "No. Can't drink. You know what it does to me."

Kennedy - "But it makes you numb and you're in pain right now!"

Dawn grumbled a bit then took the scotch and knocked back the entire bottle in one go. After which, she didn't seem to be in as much pain. She was still bleeding profusely though.

Dawn - "Phew, that's better. Thanks."

Buffy with clear concern - "What's going on?"

Kennedy - "We were runnning down leads for the guys who beat up Spike and Faith, the same ones who removed Faith's chip. We found this dark magic pusher who Dawn said was connected. He didn't seem happy to see us. One thing lead to another and Dawn got hit with some magic spell which did this to her."

Dawn - "It's not the spell."

Kennedy - "Yeah, I think it is the spell."

Dawn, slurring a little - "It's not the spell. I'm dying. That fight was just the last straw. It tipped me over the edge. I'm dying and there's nothing you can do about it."

Buffy - "What do you mean you're dying? You told me you couldn't die."

Harmony - "There was that whole thing about finding a way to kill you and we never found one. That happened, right?"

Giles nodded when she looked to him for guidance.

Dawn - "I can die alright. When we get hit with too much magic, we get damaged. We can only take so much damage until we start bleeding like this. It's the first symptom. Pretty soon, I'll die and I can't be around you guys when I do. When we die, we explode. We were designed that way."

Kennedy - "There's got to be something we can do to stop this."

Dawn - "There isn't. And Tara, I'm sorry for killing your dad. I didn't really think it through. I was just angry someone would treat you like that."

Tara - "Uh, that's okay. I've sort of forgiven you for that. After all, it's only like half your personality that killed my dad."

Dawn - "I didn't mean to hurt you. But I did and I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

Tara, frowning - "It's really okay. Just conserve your strength. We'll try to find some way to help you."

Dawn groaned - "There isn't any way. I need Twist. He's still in town, isn't he?"

Kennedy - "He's coming, Dawn. He said he was coming right over. He should be here any time now."

There was a slight flash of light and a disorientated girl appeared near the doorway. She looked around the room then looked down at a slip of paper. She seemed to be around Dawn's age but with a better tan.

New girl - "Is this the magic box? Ewww. Who's been trailing blood through your store?"

Dawn, from the table - "Betsy?"

Betsy - "Oh, hello. Do I know you?"

Dawn - "What the hell are you doing here?"

Betsy - "Maybe you could help me. I'm looking for a guy called Twist. I was told I could find him here."

Harmony - "Not again. Look, we're not his pimp."

Betsy - "Whoa there. It's not what you think."

Dawn - "That's Twist's girlfriend."

Betsy - "Actually, not that it's any of your business but I'm not his girlfriend. I dumped when he came to this crappy town. I told him, I don't want him canoodling with slayers. It never works out. He wouldn't listen so I put my foot down."

Buffy - "Isn't she sort of young?"

Dawn groaned when Betsy got angry and made her way towards the table.

Dawn - "Don't call her young. And whatever you do, don't call her too young for something."

That stopped Betsy but before she could agree, the front door opened and Twist came in.

Both Betsy and Twist seemed surprised to see each other.

Twist - "What's happening?"

Dawn - "I'm dying."

Twist paused for a bit.

Twist - "Are you sure?"

Dawn - "Yes! I'm sure. That's my blood you're standing on. I seem to have mostly bleed out now. So, I'll say I've got an hour or so left."

Twist - "But how? Betsy, is this your doing?!"

Betsy - "What? I just got here. I don't even know this girl."

Twist - "Betsy, that's Tell."

Betsy's nose crumpled up - "Oh. And he's dying? Sorry but I can't say I'm sorry."

Kennedy - "Hey!"

Betsy - "What? He killed my dad!"

Tara - "Yours too?"

Dawn, frowning - "He really was an asshole."

Betsy growled, grabbing Twist's arm - "This isn't what I'm here for. Twist, we've got to go."

Twist - "I'm sort of busy. Tell's dying. I want to be here for him."

Betsy, looking at her watch - "No, you don't understand, we now have 18 minutes to leave. Twist, they're closing the dimensional gates. All of them. They're going to quarantine this dimension. I just came to get you."

Buffy - "Wait, who's this they?"

Betsy - "Everyone. Good, bad, neutral. Something really bad is going to happen here and they want to protect the rest of existence from it. I'm sorry but I can't take humans with me. You'll have to make due on your own. I've found a way out but they'll only let demons through. You'll have to find your way to a goodie goodie portal. I can probably take Tell with us, if I really must."

Twist - "Oh crap. This can't be a coincidence."

Dawn groaned - "Ohhh craaaap. I don't think it is."

Willow - "What are you talking about?"

Dawn - "Something really bad is going to happen and I also happen to be dying at the same time."

Twist - "I totally didn't even think about that. That's bad. That's really bad."

Dawn, to the scoobies - "-I'M- the really bad thing about to happen. As an echo, when I die, I release a .. sort of.. death field. Everything dies in the immediate area."

Willow - "Yes, we know about that."

Dawn - "That death field is powered by my energy matrix finally unraveling. It's a bit like the energy release that dusts vampires. The more energy I have, the bigger the field."

Buffy - "That makes sense."

Dawn - "Here's the thing. Echoes normally don't have much energy, at least compared to most demons. But I've got the key. The key which is a power source of universe sized proportions."

Willow - "Awwww crap. I see where you're going."

Betsy, smiling - "Okay, so, Tell destroys the world. Good luck with that Tell who suddenly looks a lot different. I'm getting out of here."

Then, rather unexpectedly, an arrow shot her in the head with the front windows smashing inwards.

Twist gasped as a similar arrow shot him in the shoulder. He went down, catching Betsy as she fell down towards him.

Kennedy caught an arrow out of mid air before it entered her left eye socket. Then grunted as she found herself stuck in place as an arrow went through her gut and nailed her to the table.

Dawn slid off the table, shielded her girlfriend and tried to help her pry herself loose.

Buffy - "Weapons!"

Giles was already on the case, sliding a crossbow and stake along to Buffy. She caught them both just as the bad guys started jumping through the broken windows.

They were wearing black hoodies and were missing their eyes.

Buffy - "Bringers!"

She let loose with her crossbow, getting one in the heart but there were plenty more to take his place.

Meanwhile, Harmony pushed some large, heavy, wooden stores shelves at the bringers, spreading tacky goods over the floor as she did. While she was doing this, the bringer with the bow and arrow sighted her in.

Harmony, catching the arrow as it flew for her heart - "Ha! Missed!"

She threw the arrow back, getting the archer between the eyebrows and apparently killing them too. Another bringer pulled the arrow free and picked up the bow.

Then things got really crazy as bringers started abseiling in through the skylight.

Faith, yelling - "Buffy!"

But that didn't properly ready Buffy for the bringer who abseiled down on her and kicked her in the back of the head.

Then four of them put her in a many-manned headlock which she was having trouble getting out of.

Faith knelt down in front of her with a wide grin.

The First, as Faith - "Hi again, Buffy. Miss me?"

Buffy, while everyone else was fighting - "First, I'm so going to kick your ass."

First - "You promise?"

One of bringers kicked her in the head. It stunned her but she wasn't going down that easily. Then they hit her in the head with something large and sledgehammer shaped and that did put her down.

O-O-O-O

VampXander, VampTara and VampFaith snuck along through a fence in a graveyard. Xander was in front but stopped suddenly.

Xander - "Why are you following me so closely?"

Faith - "Uh, you're in charge. You're the leader here."

Xander - "I am?! Weird."

He kept sneaking along the fence, towards a very loud ruckus up ahead. It was starting to get very loud, with larges amounts of people howling in pain.

Xander and his two sidekicks took between the fence posts and spotted an absurdly large group of vampires fighting with a comparably sized large group of guys in black hoods and robes.

Faith - "What the hell?"

Xander - "Looks like we stumbled upon a turf war. Vamps versus bringers."

Tara - "What are bringers?"

Xander - "They're humans who have had their eyes and tongues burnt out. They work for this evil entity called the First evil. Fortunately, they don't get super strength. They're basically still human."

Faith - "They're kicking ass for a bunch of blind guys."

Xander - "Oh, yeah, I don't know how they see. But they can. And yeah, they are kicking ass. Major ass. I think they might win this fight."

They watched as the bringers cut vampire's heads off left and right. Many of the vampires were fleeing, despite their greater numbers.

Faith - "Maybe we should step in here?"

Xander gave her a weird look - "Why? If they want to kill each other, let them kill each other. It's no skin off my nose."

Faith - "Come on. We can act evil. Kick some butt then chat with the vampires. We are on a fact finding mission, remember?"

Xander - "Or we could just go somewhere else for our facts."

Tara - "I like the go somewhere else idea."

Xander - "Or we could just wait for the fight to end and mop up whoever's left. Uhh. Wait a second. Is that?... Amanda?"

Faith, smirking - "Amanda? You've got a girl in every port, don't you?"

Xander - "What? No. It's nothing like that. Most I did with her is play dungeons and dragons a few times. She was a potential slayer."

Faith, her eye's lighting up - "She's a slayer? Cool. They're just everywhere now, aren't they?"

Xander - "Ahh crap. You don't think she's a slayer, do you?"

Faith shrugged with a smile - "It's that or she's really good with big sticks."

Xander pulled out a gun, removed the safety and pulled out a stake for close encounters.

Tara - "Uh, got some for us too?"

Xander groaned - "You two didn't bring any weapons?"

Tara - "Sorry, we were sort of rushed into this because of you."

Xander, handing Faith his stake - "Right. Try to get some weapons off the ground. There should be a few lying around. Now let's make our entrance."

Almost casually, they walked onto the scene. Xander had his gun up and he carefully aimed.

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Just as casually, he reloaded while a lot of vampires were looking in his direction like he was some sort of lunatic.

A small group of bringers rushed him, only to be kicked to the ground by Tara. Curved knives clattered to the ground and she spent little time snatching two up. Faith staked one in the eye, causing it to let out a silent scream. Then spun around and stabbed another in the heart. Xander let down some cover fire and took out another sizeable bite out of the bringers.

Seeing that they had some actual competition, they decided to cut their losses and run off, leaving a traumatized group of vampires behind.

Faith – "That roundhouse was awesome, Tara. It's so cool you can do that now."

Amanda, cheerfully - "Phew, thanks Faith. You're a lifesaver."

Faith, smiling - "No prob."

Amanda smiled too then stopped abruptly. Then stood back and looked between Faith and Xander with a look of confusion.

Amanda - "Ahh, guys? I'd like to bring something to your attention."

She pointed at Faith and Xander with a very emphatic shaking of her pointing finger.

Amanda, a bit screechy with stress - "Point your weapons at them, you idiots!"

Some of the vampires, despite their best judgment, aimed weapons at the newcomers while others were less sure.

One of the unsure vamps - "Isn't Faith is a slayer?"

Amanda - "Do it, already!"

Not really wanting to, that vampire and others reluctantly pointed their weapons in the general direction of Xander, Faith and Xander. Fortunately, most of them didn't have a very long reach. But there were enough long pointy sticks to make the situation uncomfortable.

Xander - "Amanda? You're in charge of these guys?"

Amanda - "Yes, they're my gang. Now I ask the questions. I heard Xander got killed but I didn't know he was turned. I guess you must've turned Faith too."

Faith - "That's not really a question. Is it?"

Xander, to Amanda - "You've got it all wrong. We're actually from a different dimension. We're entirely different people. Besides, we're all vamps here. Mi casa et su casa?"

Amanda - "No, my casa is not your casa."

Xander - "Come on, Amanda. We just helped you out."

Amanda, pulling out some chocolate - "And now I'll help you out. Here, take this."

She handed all three of them a chocolate bar each, confusing the hell out of them.

Faith - "What's this?"

Amanda - "It's chocolate. You eat it."

Tara - "I'm not really hungry."

Amanda poked her sharpened broom handle in Tara's direction in a threatening manner, causing Faith to frown.

Faith - "Hey!"

Amanda - "Eat the chocolate!"

Faith - "Why!? Is it addictive or something?"

Amanda – "It's chocolate. Of course it's addictive. Now eat it or we kill you."

Faith gave Xander an unsure look as he unwrapped his chocolate bar and sniffed at it.

Xander - "It smells just like chocolate"

Amanda - "Of course it does. It's chocolate."

Amanda snapped a bit off Xander's block, ate it then smiled after she swallowed.

Amanda - "See. Nothing wrong with it."

Xander, frowning - "I guess since we've got no choice."

Xander ate some first but not enthusiastically.

Xander, a lot more enthusiastically - "Hey, this is great!"

Faith and Tara reluctantly unwrapped their own chocolate bars and started eating them too.

Halfway through, Faith stopped.

Faith - "Hey, I feel sort of different."

Xander - "Yeah, me too. Sort of happy."

Faith - "Really? I feel more mellow."

Xander - "Yeah, that too. What about you, Tara?"

Tara shrugged a fraction.

Amanda - "Start again, where are you people from?"

O-O-O-O

Buffy groaned as she woke up, slowly picking her face off the floor.

Kennedy, somewhat urgently - "Willow, this is really starting to hurt."

Willow - "Hold on."

Willow pulled out the arrow in Kennedy's stomach and glowed her goa'uld healing device glove over the area.

Kennedy - "That's better. Thanks."

Willow - "Hold still, I'm not done yet."

Harmony, holding a bloody hand over her own neck - "Can we move on to me now?"

Willow, still glowing over Kennedy - "Harm, that's not going to kill you. Suck it up."

Harmony, mumbling - "I'll suck something up alright."

Giles and Tara were both resting against a wall. Both looked pale and had rather large blood stains over their clothes. But didn't seem to be in any immediate medical need. That was probably thanks to Willow.

Buffy - "What happened? Did we win?"

Giles - "We didn't win. There was just too many of them. They kidnapped Faith."

Buffy, trying to get up - "They stole Faith? That First is probably going to try to possess her again."

Dawn, helping her - "Easy Buffy. You got hit in the head pretty hard."

Buffy - "I'm okay. Let's just get Faith back."

Another Buffy - "Yes. Let's do that. Together, nothing can stop us."

Buffy winced at the entrance of Buffybot and Spike.

Spike, finding this a bit funny - "Bloody hell, Giles. Someone trashed your store. Hey, who's the dead girl on the floor? You guys don't mind, do you? I missed dinner."

Buffy grimaced - "Yes, I mind."

Dawn - "Spike, you think you can track Faith?"

Spike frowned - "Dawn, uh, you don't look too good."

Dawn - "So I gathered. But we need to get Faith back."

Buffy - "Dawn, I don't think that's a good idea. You should stay here. You're dying, remember?"

Dawn groaned - "Buffy. There's now two things which could cause the world to end as we know it. I could destroy the earth or the First could possess Faith. You don't understand just how bad the First in bodily form could be. There are very good reasons why she doesn't have a body. Besides, I've still got at least half an hour. We can go save her and get back in time for me to die."

Spike, missing a few things - "What's this?"

Dawn - "Don't have time. Let's go now. Uh, Kennedy, you stay behind and protect everyone who doesn't have super strength, okay? And can you put Twist's head back on his neck? It should connect together after a minute or so."

0-0-0-0

Back in VampVerse, one of the Dawns there was fidgeting.

Dawn - "Aren't they supposed to be back by now?"

Buffy frowned - "Yes. They were. They should've been back ten minutes ago."

Dawn - "Shouldn't we go get them?"

Buffy - "I'm sure he's fine."

Dawn - "Pleeeeze?"

Buffy sighed - "Fine. Let's go get them. Hey, watchers, open up the portal again. Same location."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	50. 15c Interchangeables

Episode 15, Chapter C : Interchangeables.

O-O-O-O

The tardy time traveling Xander had totally forgotten about his reconnaissance duties. He was having too much fun twirling his automatic pistol around.

Xander, mock firing his gun - "Kapow kapow!"

Amanda - "Why do you have a gun anyway?"

Xander - "For shooting things."

Faith - "I thought it was cool."

Tara didn't seem to have any opinion.

Trailing behind those four was the large horde of vampires which Amanda called her gang. They were giving her a lot of space since Xander told them that Amanda was a Slayer. Amanda thought he was nuts but her opinion didn't seem to matter in this case.

Xander - "So I'm dead here too? That sucks."

Amanda - "Yup. It sucks. And stop twirling that around. You'll shoot yourself in the foot."

While Amanda was tracking the bringers, they came across another set of trackers.

Amanda, yelling - "Hey, Buffy! Over here."

Buffy, Buffybot, Spike, Dawn and Harmony quietly approached the vampire horde.

Buffy - "Ssh. Can't you keep it down?"

Amanda - "Not really. I've got a hundred guys behind me. You can't stop them making noise."

Buffy didn't hear that. Instead, she hugged Faith.

Faith, pleasantly surprised - "Oof! Hey B."

Buffy yelped and pushed Faith off when she was squeezed somewhere inappropriate, getting a chuckle out of Xander.

Buffy - "Wait. You're not Faith. Xander? What's going on here?"

Amanda - "Actually, she is Faith. They're from another dimension. Vampires too. But I made them eat some chocolate so they should be okay."

Buffy groaned - "Not this again. This really isn't the time."

Spike, laughing - "Tara? Tara's a vampire! That's hilarious."

Tara shrunk in on herself and Faith growled a little.

Faith - "Hey, shut up, William the bloody awful poet."

Spike froze - "How did you know about that?"

Faith - "Got you drunk, screwed your brains out and listened to you talk about your crappy life as a human."

Buffy, crying for attention - "Hello! We don't have time! We're going to save Faith, remember? The other Faith."

Spike - "Right. But look, Tara."

Dawn - "Buffy's right. We need to move, Spike."

Amanda, as they started walking again - "What's going on?"

Buffy - "Amanda, isn't it? Some bringers stole Faith."

Amanda - "Right. Well, we just fought off a whole big bunch of bringers. These three helped too."

Buffy - "Really?"

Faith - "Yeah. We fight evil and stuff. Isn't that, right?"

Xander, twirling his gun again - "That's right. We're superheroes. Heh."

Buffy, to Xander - "What are you doing with a gun? And point that somewhere else!"

Xander - "Sorry."

O-O-O-O

Faith woke up as she felt small jagged blades dig into her back. She immediately tried to get away but her arms and legs were restrained. Any movement and the blades just dug in deeper. She seemed to be chained down to some sort of torture rack.

Faith, croaking with a dry throat - "What the hell?"

The First, looking like Buffy -"Thought you were going to sleep through this. Not that I care."

Ghost Xander - "This is really screwed up, even for you."

They were in a large customer area for a minigolf clubhouse.

First - "How so? How is this screwed up, even for me? I'm evil."

Xander - "What do you think you're going to accomplish by this? Besides get a heap of your minions killed? It doesn't make any tactical sense."

First - "Oh, it does when you've got the full picture. See, it's not Faith I'm after. It's you."

Xander - "Me? But I'm dead."

First, grinning - "And yet you're still here. Ever wonder why? Most ghosts have reasons for hanging around. So what's yours?"

Xander frowned - "I don't really seem to have one."

First - "You did to begin with though. You were angry. That's one reason. Also, you wanted Faith to be a goodie too shoes. That's another reason. You're not angry anymore and Faith is back on the rocky road of redemption. So what do you think you're still doing here?"

Xander - "There's this show on TV. Have you seen it, Lost? I know they'll never explain anything but part of me just doesn't care."

First, not acting like Buffy at all - "This connection you have with Faith isn't normal. It's never been normal. Most people would need magic to make a link like that and would need magic to keep it. But you, you did it without trying and it's getting stronger every day. That's why you're still a ghost. And that's why I'm going to eat your soul. Mmmm, tasty soul."

Xander - "What?"

First – "You have no idea how hard it was for me to organize this. Once I found out what you were, I sculpted your entire life so it would lead to this very moment. You think it was chance that you met Buffy? That Faith was called? That you fell in love with Anya? I played you like a fiddle."

Xander, not buying this at all – "You're lying. Why would you do that?"

First – "Because you're special. Unique. You're a snowflake in a sea of steaming sewerage and I'm going to use your larger than death powers to set me free."

Xander – "I don't think so."

First, smirking – "You don't get a say in this."

A bringer pulled out a large curved dagger and held it to Faith's throat.

First, smiling – "Unlike you, I'm not just some ghost. I can hurt people. Case in point."

The bringer pulled back his knife and then a crossbow bolt struck a bringer in the head and pinned him to the wall. Xander flinched in surprised while the first evil just scowled.

First – "I guess it's time I brought out my secret weapon. Bringers, attack maneuver epsilon!"

Xander - "That's not a secret weapon, you fool."

Much to Xander's surprise, bringers flooded through the foyer out onto the mini-golf course in huge numbers, like a swarm of hooded rats.

Xander, trying to avoid the flood of bringers - "Oh crap! I didn't know you had that many."

First, grinning happily - "I've been really busy."

O-O-O-O

Outside, the scoobies and candyvamps were confronted by a swarm of bringers rushing towards them. They let fly with crossbows and Xander fired off his gun but the crowd absorbed it like it was nothing and trampled their own dying numbers.

Some random vampire - "Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!"

But before the bringers overwhelmed them, they stopped.

It surprised the good guys who were readying themselves for some brutal hand to hand combat.

Xander, whispering to Faith – "I'm out of bullets."

Spike, stopping Buffybot from wading in - "What are they doing?"

Buffy - "Waiting. They're just here to stop us."

Dawn - "Faith, she's just on the other side of them. We need to get her."

Buffy - "But how are we going to get past these guys?"

Dawn - "Throw me."

Buffy - "What?"

Dawn - "You and Harmony, throw me together. You should be able to get me past them."

Buffy - "Why? What good will that do?"

Dawn - "I'll run in, free Faith and run her out the back. When the bringers chase us, you chase them down."

Harmony - "That's nuts."

Spike - "We could always go get a flamethrower."

Buffy - "Not enough time. They could be readying a spell or something in there. Dawn, you sure about this?"

Dawn nodded as Buffy and Harmony held her from the sides. Then they pushed hard and Dawn flew through the air, well over the bringers and through the front doors to the minigolf clubhouse.

She quickly picked herself up and turned around in time for a bringer to stab her in chest, knocking her to the ground. She punched him in the face a few times with her punchknife, making a mess of their face but also getting them off. Another pulled her arm back and pinned her face down to the ground. As she struggled to get up, another grabbed her other arm, effectively trapping her there.

First, changing to Faith - "Does the cute little key have a crush on me? Did she try to save me? Too bad."

Dawn realized she was being held down in the middle of a large series of chalk circles, with runes and symbols along the edges. Also along the outside were several bringers, each holding surprisingly large, softly glowing blue crystals.

They slowly held the crystals aloft and the room started humming gently.

Dawn - "Wait! No!"

Then they threw the crystals down, shattering them and the room exploded with white light.

Dawn screamed, throwing the bringers off as her body caught on fire.

Outside, it looked like lightning struck the clubhouse. The air around the clubhouse started glowing sky blue.

Buffy - "Oh crap, run!"

Most people were already running.

The bringers were running too, tackling anyone they could to the ground.

There was a pop and everything went silent except for the vampires running away.

Buffy looked over her shoulder and saw bringers and vampires a like fall to the ground. Then the vampire turned to dust without any obvious reason to.

Whatever it was, was over quick.

Amanda - "What was that?!"

Buffy - "Was that .. Dawn? Did she just die?"

Harmony - "I don't know. We should find out though. Faith was in there."

The scoobies walked between the dead bringers and made their way up to the clubhouse. Through the blown out doors and under a broken roof, a lone naked girl was kneeling in the middle of the floor.

Buffy, moving closer - "Dawn?"

But it wasn't Dawn.

Faith slowly stood up and turned around, with a gleeful smile on her face.

Faith - "Hi Buffy. Are you going to kick my ass now?

Buffy backed off and stared - "The First?"

Faith - "In the sexy flesh."

Harmony - "I'm sorry about this Faith but I've got to restrain you."

Faith casually brushed aside Harmony and the blonde vampire was violently flew through a wall. Then Faith did the same thing when Buffybot tried the same thing.

Buffy stared in horror but seemed to be frozen in place. Spike pulled on Buffy's arm to get her to move but Faith stopped him with a punch in the chest which threw him out the front door and caved in his chest. Buffy started backpedaling but the found herself backed into a wall.

First, grabbing Buffy around the jaw - "I've been waiting for this for so long. Now I'm going to.. ugh"

The First bowed with unexpected pain.

First - "No!"

Then Faith's body began dissolved and turning into a ball of floating, clear liquid.

Buffy - "Okay. That's different."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else.

The First roared in the form of a giant magma covered demon.

Xander punched him the face to little effect.

Faith - "Hey, guys, some help here would be nice."

Dawn and Tell were separate people again and both didn't look like they would be much help.

Dawn - "What happened? Are we in our head?"

The First swatted Faith against a wall with incredible force but it only winded her.

Then Xander jumped on its back, more as a distraction than anything.

Tell, to Dawn - "You know what we have to do?"

Dawn - "I really don't want to. Not again."

Tell grabbed her hand and there was a slight flash of light as she absorbed him.

Then she picked herself off the ground with a much more determined look in her eyes.

Dawn - "I don't know how you did that but it hurt. A lot!"

The first picked her up and drop kicked her across the room.

O-O-O-O

By now, Buffy had somehow managed to get the big floating ball of liquid back to the magic box. Perhaps they did it with a large garbage bag or a tarpaulin.

It's never explained how.

I guess we'll never know.

Twist was busy putting chalk to floorboards, supposedly creating a binding spell for whatever Faith had turned into.

Buffy, trying to be comforting – "Twist. I'm sorry about Betsy. I didn't really know her but -"

Twist, rolling his eyes – "She's not dead."

Buffy – "Oh. Did Willow fix her? Can Willow fix an arrow through someone's head?"

Willow - "It wasn't me. Twist just pulled it out and she woke up."

Twist - "Betsy and I have more than a few things in common. One of them being that we don't die easily. And I would've woken up sooner if someone hadn't tried to put my head on the wrong way around."

That last comment was pointed at Kennedy.

Harmony - "What is this thing?"

Harmony poked a finger into the gently rippling floating ball of water in the middle of the room then tasted her finger.

Twist - "Can you not stand in the binding circle? You're a demon. I'm making it to trap in demons. You don't want to be trapped in there, do you? You'll be trapped in there with that!"

Buffy - "I thought you guys couldn't be trapped by magic?"

Twist - "We can. You just need the right spells. Fortunately for me, most people don't know the right spells. I'd appreciate it if you didn't memorize the layout. Ta."

Buffy, pointing to the big ball of water - "And do you know what this is?"

Twist - "I've got a theory."

Kennedy - "Such as?"

Twist - "Back when I really young, I saw a few of these. They're blank slates. They're an echo without anyone in them. I don't know how they did it but they would inject some DNA or something into them and they would turn into someone. Someone like me. So either everyone in that thing is dead or .. there's something else going on."

O-O-O-O

The First threw Faith up, so she hit the ceiling and fell back to the floor. Apparently the first was having a lot of fun with all this violence.

Dawn, running out of energy - "I've got an idea."

Faith, in a similar state - "What?"

Dawn - "I've joined with Tell, You've joined with Xander. Why don't you try joining with me?"

Faith - "What? Don't we have to be compatible or something to do that?"

Dawn, dodging a swing by the first - "It's not strictly necessary. It's more of a guideline."

Dawn tried dodging again but was knocked over. Faith helped her up and on contact, tried to merge with them.

Dawn looked her in the eyes one last time and then Faith felt them merge together.

To be honest, there wasn't so much a lot of merging involved. It was more a jumbled mess of thought contained within one form. They mixed together like water and oil. But through it all, some part of them retained clarity of thought.

The First struck at them with a large hammer like fist and they blocked it but the blow pushed them back and hurt like hell.

First, laughing - "You really think that's going to help you?"

Faith shaped merging of personalities - "Yeah, I really did."

The First laughed again and struck them against the wall so hard they felt themselves squish.

They fell to the ground, with the realization that they were running out of whatever people run on in there. Soul juice?

Scooby voltron - "This is a bad idea."

The First pulled its fist back and did a straight punch again. They dodged it and held on to the wrist. The First tried to shake them off but couldn't. Then it started wailing in pain as horror fell over its nightmarish features.

Scooby voltron - "If you can't beat you, join them."

As they tried merging with the first, they felt unlimited power surge into them. With that power came an overwhelming, irrational anger that burned its way through them.

Before it got too much and they lost themselves, they let go. They felt much stronger but more than a little odd. However, the First lay on the ground in defeat.

The four scoobies split back into their individual forms and took a moment to catch their breath.

Dawn - "Hey, maybe we should chain that thing up before it attacks us again."

Faith - "Good idea. Tell, where you keep the chains in here?"

O-O-O-O

Back in reality.

Buffy - "So what's the plan here?"

Twist, while busy scribbling runes on the floor with chalk - "To trap it so the first can't use it to kill us all."

Buffy - "I gathered that. I mean, what are we going to do with evil dee and evil dumb?"

VampFaith, VampXander frowned. If VampTara frowned, you couldn't see it behind the curtain of hair covering her face.

VampFaith - "Bags on being evil dee. You know what we need, we need music. I really feel like dancing to something. Come on Tara, dance with me."

Faith made some "do-do" sounds to imitate music while she danced and picking up Tara's arms in an attempt to get her dance along too. Tara wasn't resisting but she did look like she was dying from embarrassment.

Amanda, a little embarrassed too as she talked to Buffy - "With the vampcandy, the first few days are always the strangest."

Xander, snuggling up to Buffybot - "Oh, hey, you again. I missed your robotic cuteness."

Buffybot - "Hello to you too. Willow, should I be staking him?"

Willow - "No. At least not yet."

Faith, with her shoulders around both Taras - "Hey, Xander, Tara in stereo. How fun would that be?"

Xander - "Can I join in?"

Faith, playfully - "Nuh uh. They're mine."

Xander - "I don't get a shot with her? I think after the amount of times I saved her ass, I deserve her more than you."

Faith - "But you treated her like a dog."

Xander - "Like you don't want to?"

HumanTara, breaking free from Faith – "Neither of you two are getting me. I'm already taken."

Faith, groaning - "Did Dawn steal you here too?"

Tara - "Dawn? No. I'm with Willow. Wait. Dawn!?!"

Willow, to Tara - "Dawn?"

Faith, as if agreeing - "I know! I don't get it either. But if tomato-brains has nabbed Tara first then... Oooh! Buffy! Buffy's free, right?"

Buffy, trying to figure out this logic - "Uhhh."

Faith, cheerfully squishing Buffy with a hug - "This is awesome! I'm getting Buffy! You guys can go screw yourselves. She's mine now."

Buffy pushed Faith off her and shook her head, backing away from the jailbait vampire.

Buffy - "Whoa there, sparky. I don't swing that way."

As she backed up, she found herself hugged from behind by Xander.

Xander - "Then I guess she's mine. Too bad, Faith."

Buffy easily broke free from Xander, without any real resistance and backed off away from both the vampires.

Buffy - "Look, you two. We're not some objects you can just claim because you want to. You two need a time out."

Faith frowned - "Buffy as a human isn't any fun."

Xander, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively - "We could take a time out together."

Faith found that funny and giggled - "We could, couldn't we. And you still do owe me for that time I -"

Buffy, angrily cutting her off - "DON'T want to know. You two, just zip it. We've got problems here and the last thing we need are vampires from another dimension making it more complicated."

Another Buffy, finding that a bit funny - "Well, that's not going to happen."

The scoobies and the candy vamps turned to find SuccubusBuffy and VampDawn standing by the doorway. The candyvamps pointed their weapons in her direction and she gave out an almost soft, low growl, causing them to back off slowly in fear. Even Amanda and Harmony seemed scared while Spike seemed quietly impressed. Willow took this opportunity to slowly hide behind her Buffy,

Harmony, hiding behind Buffy too - "Uhh, that can't be good."

HumanBuffy - "You're right. She's a vampire version of me."

Harmony - "There's that and then there was that growl. I've never heard one so good from someone so small."

Spike, smiling with appreciation - "Yeah, when the hell did Buffy get such class? I felt that in my bones."

SuckyBuffy, ignoring the scoobies for a moment - "Xander. What's going on? Remember what I told you? Twenty minutes."

Xander - "Sorry. Slipped my mind. But look, a robot version of you."

Dawn, moving towards Tara - "Tara! You scared me, I - "

But she was stopped by the human version of Buffy who had a determined look on her face and a threatening stake in her hands.

Buffy - "I'm not impressed by some sissy growl. Firstly, we're going to feed you some chocolate. Then we're going to... uhh."

Buffy's stake arm lowered and the stake dropped out of her limp hand.

Dawn, smiling - "You're going to what?"

Buffy, with a little whimper - "Get stuck in place by your hypnotic vampire eyes."

SuckyBuffy, with a little pride - "Nice. You've been practicing that?"

Dawn - "Sorta."

SuckyBuffy - "Not bad. But what you going to do about the rest?"

Dawn, trying not to break her concentration - "I thought maybe you could handle them?"

Twist - "And what if someone does this?"

Twist put a hand in front of HumanBuffy's face, breaking line of sight and snapping them out of the trance. Faith laughed heartily, along with Xander. VampTara just seemed scared of the whole situation. While Dawn felt a little vulnerable being surrounded by people who might want to hurt her.

Faith - "Relax, Dawnie. They're not evil. They're the human versions of us. Though, I don't see me, which is disappointing."

Dawn - "You do remember that the last human version of Buffy we met was evil, right?"

HumanBuffy - "What?"

SuckyBuffy - "You're just going to keep reminding me of that, aren't you? But this me doesn't seem evil. And we've got Willow, who's supposed to turn into an evil witch in the future and... okay, maybe them being human isn't a clear sign they're not evil. But they don't seem evil and I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt. We don't to fight them because of a misunderstanding. That's way too comic book for my taste."

Willow, adorably worrisome - "I turn evil?"

VampBuffy, proving a point - "See, that's so cute. She can't be evil."

VampDawn - "Like you'd care with Willow. You'd probably prefer her evil."

VampBuffy - "And look, they've got another Tara. We haven't met an evil Tara yet."

VampDawn - "That's technically true. But Tara could totally be evil. She looks innocent but trust me, she isn't. She's insatiable."

HumanBuffy, steadying herself with one hand on a table - "I thought I would've been immune to that staring thing after I fought off Dracula's bedroom eyes."

VampBuffy, cheerfully - "Oh, you've fought Dracula? Yeah, his screw-me-eyes are better than average. I don't mean to brag but I think I'm better."

Spike, groaning - "Don't tell me you lot have souls. I was actually looking forward to meeting an evil Buffy."

VampBuffy sighed - "We're not that evil but don't have souls."

VampDawn - "Yes we do! We totally have souls."

VampBuffy, patting Dawn on the head - "Ignore Dawn. She's led a sheltered life."

VampDawn - "Why do you keep saying that? I've done stuff. I got turned by you in a not-so-nice way. I lived on the streets. I've even had sex. Like I've had sex more than ten times. I've even had group sex. With girls. That's edgy."

VampBuffy, hugging Dawn - "Awww. That's so cuuute."

VampDawn, squirming - "Buffy, stop it. You're embarrassing me."

Then Faith and Xander joined in, making a Dawn squishing group hug. Spike looked disturbed as he shook his head slowly.

Spike - "That's not right."

Then the group hug stopped as Dawn squealed and very forcibly pushed Faith out of it.

Dawn - "Faith, that's not an approved hugging maneuver!"

Faith, laughing as she picked herself up - "Her butt feels like solid granite. That must be why Tara likes her. She's a butt girl."

Xander slapped a hand on Dawn's derriere and got a yelp of surprise out of Dawn, while VampTara covered her face with her hands.

Xander - "Actually, I think Buffy's butt is tighter than that."

Faith - "Yeah but it's mostly bone."

VampXander - "You might be right."

HumanBuffy, perhaps a little angry - "Wait, you and Xander!?!"

VampBuffy, a little confused - "Not this Xander, no."

VampXander - "Ages back, we fell over and as I got up, I felt up your ass a little. Not enough for you to notice though."

VampBuffy - "Was this before or after you turned?"

VampXander - "No comment."

Faith, trapped in the center of the room - "This is good entertainment. We should screw around with other dimensions more often."

All eyes were suddenly on the naked Faith standing in the middle of the room, trapped within Twist's binding circle.

The much younger looking Faith stared - "Wow. I'm hot!"

Naked Faith, covering important parts - "And I'm naked. And it's kind of chilly tonight. Can someone lend me some clothes here? Guys?"

Spike hemmed and tossed his jacket to her, which she slid on and wrapped around herself.

Faith - "Thanks. That was ... what's that word, with the knights and the damsels and the dragons?"

Spike guessed - "Chivalrous?"

Faith - "Yeah. That. It was that."

HumanBuffy, pointing to her undead alternate - "You, stay still."

Then she pointed at the now not so naked Faith.

HumanBuffy - "You stay still too."

Twist - "She's trapped in there. I finished laying down the spell."

HumanBuffy - "Oh. That's good."

Older Faith in the circle, touching a magical barrier - "What? What is this?"

VampFaith - "Hey, I like invisible barriers. They're cool."

Before Twist could say anything, VampFaith walked forwards and found herself trapped in there too.

VampFaith - "Hey! What the hell? I can't get out now."

Twist groaned - "It's a one-way barrier. It lets things in but not out."

Xander, with a hand up as if in class - "Can I join the circle? Please?"

SuckyBuffy to HumanBuffy - "Get her out of there! This isn't funny."

Twist - "We can't. Not without letting loose .. whoever that is."

SuckyBuffy, to Twist - "Why not? and do I know you from somewhere?"

Twist - "No. I just have one of those faces."

Kennedy, squinting at Faith - "I think that might be our Faith in there, not the first evil."

Willow - "How would we tell? The First spends all its time acting as other people. It's probably pretty good at it."

SuckyBuffy - "First evil? Did your Faith get possessed by the first evil? Because in my world, it was me. Weird."

Buffy - "Yes. But actually that's not Faith."

Half naked Faith in the circle - "B, it's me. Me, Xander, Dawn and Tell beat up the first from the inside and I took control of the body. I guess that's why I look like myself instead of Dawn."

VampDawn, confused – "Inside?"

Twist - "That's not how it works. Our bodies have a set form. Even if we get possessed, it doesn't change. The only way to change it is with huge quantities of magic."

Half naked Faith frowned a bit - "Uh, hold on."

She closed her eyes then morphed into Tell, surprising Twist.

Tell, looking down at the jacket - "What am I wearing? We need a dress code. Wait, Faith? Huh? Stop that."

VampFaith, trying to hug him - "Hey, cutie."

Tell, resisting her attempts - "Does this Faith have a soul? I'm getting soul vibes here."

SuckyBuffy growled - "For the last time, we don't have souls."

Tell - "How long was I gone? It didn't seem that long. When did the other Buffy turn up?"

Twist - "A few minutes ago. Is that really you, Tell?"

Tell - "Yes. It's me."

Twist - "How the hell did you do that?"

Tell, frowning - "I have no earthly idea. The first did something. Instead of killing me, it healed me but it took control of me. I don't know how yet but something caused it to lose control and we took it down. It's still inside me but it's not going anywhere. Uhh. Faith wants to talk again. Hold on."

Tell pursed his mouth until his form morphed back into Faith.

DemonFaith – "That's going to take some getting used to and can you stop trying to cop a feel?"

VampFaith, grinning – "Nope."

SuckyBuffy, to Xander who was getting frisky – "Okay, what the hell is wrong with you guys?"

Willow – "They're on vampcandy. It reverts vampires into mindless teenagers."

Amanda – "The first few days are always the weirdest."

SuckyBuffy – "And why would they be on that?"

HumanBuffy – "It's what we feed the vampires around here. It stops them from running around killing people."

Harmony – "Unless they did that sort of thing when they were in highschool."

Xander – "I'm pretty sure I DID do that sort of stuff in highschool."

SuckyBuffy – "Intriguing. But I think I prefer them the way they were. How long are they going to stay like that?"

Amanda – "Two days. Maybe longer. But you can totally live on vampcandy. I do and I'm okay. You should try it."

Dawn – "Hey, do you guys know me in this world? I don't see me here."

Harmony – "You're sort of around. I think."

VampFaith, from inside the invisible barrier – "She better not be sleeping with Tara here too or I'm kicking her butt."

Willow, eyes bugging out – "They are in your world?"

Dawn – "What? What's wrong with that? I thought you approved."

HumanTara – "Willow, it doesn't mean anything. They're vampires."

VampBuffy laughing – "Oh my god. Willow and Tara are an item here? Weird."

Dawn – "It makes some sense though. Like if you didn't hypnotize Willow, she might still have a thing for me."

Willow, grimacing – "What? I don't have a thing for Dawn."

Dawn, trying to figure this out – "This is sort of weird. There's me and Tara, me and Willow in the future, Tara and Willow here and then there's Buffy and Willow back home. Apparently, we're pretty interchangeable."

VampBuffy, shaking her head - "I don't think so, Dawn. Willow is definitely above average."

Dawn, grinning - "Then I guess I am too. After all, Tara did choose me over Willow."

VampBuffy - "No she didn't! Once I saw you making a run for Willow, I pulled an interception and blocked your play. Too slow, slow poke."

Dawn - "Oh come on. I'm not into Willow. Uh, no offence other Willow."

Willow - "None taken."

VampBuffy, to Willow - "She is totally into you. I could tell by her cries of Oh Willow, your tongue feels so good."

Dawn, with a scrunched up face - "I'm pretty sure I didn't say that."

VampBuffy - "That's what it sounded like to me when I pried you off her."

Dawn - "I think it might've been the other way around. You missed some of the things she said about my tongue."

VampBuffy growled and got a yelp when she pulled on Dawn's long hair. A quick look back at the room reminded her of where she was, so she didn't go much further.

VampBuffy - "I normally wouldn't take that. You're lucky you're my childe. This must be how Angel feels about Spike."

Dawn chuckled a bit as Vampbuffy let her go.

Spike, a little disturbed - "Did she just compare Dawn to me?"

HumanBuffy, similarly disturbed - "I think she did. And hey, vamp me. Don't hurt Dawn like that. And did you really just call her your childe!?!"

VampBuffy groaned - "Yes. I did. Why do people from the future and other dimensions seem to have such a problem with that? Sure, I didn't know she'd turn into such a little brat but come on, there's nothing obviously wrong with her. She's sort of pretty."

VampDawn, not really thankful - "Thanks."

VampBuffy - "You know what I mean. You're... sort of not bad looking. Seriously though, you looked a whole lot tastier when you were tied up and pleading for your life."

VampDawn - "And you acted a whole lot nicer when I chained you to a wall and fed you on guinea pigs. Do we have to have family time in front of strangers like this? Is it really necessary?"

VampBuffy - "I guess not."

VampDawn - "Good. Now you people who look like us. Give me back my Tara!"

The humans moved aside to let Dawn take Tara under her wing and shuffled them back to VampBuffy.

Dawn – "Thanks. Urm, Just curious, am I with anyone here? Maybe Spike?"

Kennedy, holding up a hand – "Guilty"

Dawn, a little surprised – "Oh. Uh. You seem nice."

VampBuffy, smirking – "She might have a nice personality."

VampDawn – "Don't mind Buffy, she's just likes to make fun of my choice in women."

Kennedy – "I'm a slayer."

VampXander – "And who doesn't like a slayer? In my future, Kennedy's with Willow and Willow seemed to enjoy that."

Dawn, not pleased – "Wow. That just reinforced us interchangeable."

Kennedy, trying her best to ignore that last comment – "Excuse me but something is bugging me. Why aren't you guys despicably evil?"

VampDawn, shrugging – "We're just not."

VampBuffy – "It's part of the slayer deal. You might not know this but Slayer powers come from a sort of guardian spirit. In our world, it's often called the first slayer."

HumanBuffy – "I've met them."

VampBuffy – "Vision quest?"

HumanBuffy – "Amongst other things."

VampBuffy – "Well, when a slayer is turned, that guardian spirit fights against the demonic vampire spirit. In most cases it wins and instead of being completely evil, the vampire is given the strength and skill to fight vampires but also the need to protect humanity. But let's make one thing clear. I am most definitely not Buffy. She died and I just haven't picked up a better name."

VampDawn didn't seem too pleased at this but didn't argue.

VampBuffy – "But I've still got the same great taste in clothes."

HumanBuffy – "That's good to know. But what about Dawn and Xander?"

VampDawn – "Actually, we did this spell and now I'm a slayer too. Same with Xander."

VampBuffy – "You totally didn't know that spell would make you a slayer, remember."

Dawn – "I didn't know a lot about that spell. But it happened and now we just have to make the best of it."

Twist – "This I have to see. Just hold still, Dawn."

Twist put a hand up to VampDawn's forehead, making her frown.

Twist, taking down his hand – "She's full of slayer energy. Strange. She seems to be metabolizing the slayer energy too. For all intensive purposes, she'll have slayer powers. But she's not a slayer."

VampDawn – "I don't see how I'm not."

Twist – "Are you getting the nightmares?"

VampDawn – "I had one just after the spell. But nothing else so far. So."

HumanBuffy, also a bit confused by this – "How could she have slayer powers but not be a slayer?"

Twist – "That first nightmare was probably a side effect from the spell. The fact that you're not getting any more of them suggests you're going to run out of slayer energy. Most people don't know this but those nightmares are what connect slayers to the slayer source. Without them, they stop being slayers."

VampBuffy – "Crap. He's right. We've got this drug on my world that we give dangerous slayers. It strips them of their powers. But it does it slowly. Because it doesn't actually stop their powers. It just stops them dreaming."

Twist, nodding – "We've got the same thing here. This Dawn should be okay for another month or so. But after that, it'll start to go."

VampBuffy – "But she'll still be my childe and my children aren't evil. I don't let them be."

VampDawn – "I'm not really a slayer? It's temporary?"

VampBuffy – "looks like, Dawnie. This changes things. More than half our slayers were made with that spell. We'll need to push forward our timetable if we want to use them."

Humanbuffy – "You've got a timetable? Hold on, I completely forgot to ask, what are you doing here, not-me?"

SuckyBuffy, perhaps a little too confrontational – "War."

Or perhaps she was just confrontational enough. She had their attention.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	51. 15d A lot of talk

Episode 15, Chapter D : A lot of talk

Authors note : I feel that I just simply must apologize for something that happens in this chapter. I'm sorry. I've learnt my lesson and I'll never do it again. I promise.

O-O-O-O

At the magic box.

HumanBuffy – "So what are you doing here, not-me?"

SuckyBuffy – "War. There's a type of demon we call face eaters. They're like vampires but a lot less chatty and a lot less fun. You may or may not have heard about them but let me tell you that they're bad news."

Willow – "Shouldn't you be fighting them in, I dunno, your world instead of ours?"

SuckyBuffy – "They can move between dimensions. Once they kill our world, they'll move on to yours. Or they might kill yours first. I'm not here for kicks. I'm here for survival. I'm here to get allies in this fight. Now, can you explain to me why your Faith is a demon?"

HumanBuffy – "That's a long story."

DemonFaith, batting VampFaith's hands away – "Guys, I'm not the first evil. Let me out of here!"

Twist – "She probably still is the first."

HumanBuffy sighed, looked DemonFaith in the eyes for a few seconds and shook her head.

HumanBuffy – "I think that's Faith."

Kennedy – "Same."

SuckyBuffy – "It's not the first, I'll tell you that."

Kennedy, still a little on guard with vampBuffy – "And you'd know this how?"

SuckyBuffy, smirking – "The First isn't that good at acting. Their eyes always give them away. Their eyes don't change."

Twist – "Buffy, it's up to you. If you want to free them, just break a line on the chalk. I'll be standing over there."

HumanBuffy broke one of the large chalk circles with her foot and VampFaith gleefully tackled her to the ground.

VampFaith, smiling like a kewpie doll – "A whole new Buffy! This'll be fun."

SuckyBuffy picked VampFaith up and impatiently handed her to Dawn.

SuckyBuffy - "Dawn, take these lunatics home. Make sure they don't do anything too stupid. I need to have a chat with these Scoobies. I'll be back soon."

Dawn, with her potion ready to drink – "Okay. If you're sure. Come on, everyone. Drinky time."

Faith, looking like she's about to start a tantrum – "But I just got here. And now I've got two Taras. I wanna stay. I wanna live here with my Taras in a nice house."

Buffy frowned – "I don't care what drugs you're on Faith but you definitely can't live here. Or rather, our Tara can't live here. She's a vampire and that Tara isn't. You know what happened to Xander. You don't want that happening to this nice Tara, do you?"

HumanTara – "What would happen to me?"

Buffy, casually – "You die. But first you get wacky nightmares about Nam."

VampTara, quietly eager to go – "We really should go."

Dawn waited for the three vampires to drink until she started. Then, after a few seconds, they started going blurry.

Blurry Faith - "Slay ya later."

Then the three lunatics plus Dawn disappeared in a blink.

Harmony, of Buffy – "I still don't trust this vampire. She's shifty."

SuckyBuffy – "For clarification, unlike my friends, I'm not a vampire. Undead but not a vampire. I'm a succubus. But not the type that eats souls. I'm a far more harmless variety."

There was a long pause, which Buffy the succubus expected.

SuckyBuffy – "And no, Spike. Not gonna have sex with you. Sorry but I'm currently in a monogamous relationship."

Spike, disgruntled – "What? You don't tell people you're a succubus and then not have sex with them. That's no fun at all."

Kennedy – "This is a joke, right? I'm getting vampire vibes off her."

SuckyBuffy – "Yeah, we get picked up on slayer radars just the same as vampires."

HumanBuffy – "You're telling us that you feed on sex?"

SuckyBuffy, smirking - "It's sort of our thing."

Willow - "But Buffy doesn't even like sex."

Buffy, scandalized - "Willow! I like sex!"

Buffy turned a little embarrassed after saying that last part out loud in front of a crowd.

DemonFaith, to HumanBuffy – "Keep going, B, this is getting interesting. So you like sex?"

Buffy, turning a bit red – "Topic change. Faith, are you okay?"

Faith - "Sure. I'm feeling a lot better now that I can rub one out. Ohhhh. You're talking about me being all demon? Yeah, that's fine."

SuckyBuffy, tilting her head as she analyzed Faith – "Uhh, hold on. Don't take this question the wrong way but do you enjoy copious amounts of sex?"

Faith – "Does copious mean -"

HumanBuffy, quickly – "It means lots."

Faith – "Oh, then sure. Who doesn't?"

SuckyBuffy, to Willow – "Is your Faith a shameless hussy?"

Willow, surprised at being asked – "Umm. Yes. Extremely so."

SuckyBuffy – "Oh my god, I thought our Faith was exaggerating but she really IS like that normally. I thought it was cos she's a vamp but apparently not."

HumanBuffy, chuckling – "Easy mistake to make."

SuckyBuffy – "That's kind of disturbing."

Faith – "Says the Succubus?"

Giles, looking a bit drained – "Maybe we should get back to business."

SuckyBuffy – "Sure. Business it is. To combat the face eater threat, I've assembled a small army of around a thousand slayers. What have you guys got?"

Willow – "Did you say a thousand slayers?"

SuckyBuffy, grinning – "It involved going back in time in a lot but yeah, I've been busy."

HumanBuffy, pouting – "We've got three."

Harmony – "Four! We've got four."

Amanda – "Possibly five. It would explain a few things."

Giles – "In a situation like this, the watchers council might be persuaded to help. We could possibly get access to some mercenaries."

Harmony – "And we have the candy vamps."

Willow, smiling – "And the SGC and the charmed ones and we might be able to scry for even more help."

Faith – "There's Angel too. And we've got bazookas."

VampBuffy – "Who are those people Willow brought up? The SGC and the charmed ones? Seriously, there are people who call themselves the charmed ones? They sound like douchebags."

Willow, a bit defensively – "They didn't make up the name. The charmed ones are three really powerful witches. And the SGC stands for stargate control. They travel to different worlds."

VampBuffy – "Like through dimensions? Cool. That'll be useful."

Willow – "No, to different planets."

Vampbuffy squinted at Willow then frowned when she couldn't spot a lie.

VampBuffy – "You're not joking? You're telling me you've got spaceships on this world? We've got them on ours but the only place we've been is to the moon."

HumanBuffy – "Hate to tell you this but aliens exist."

VampBuffy – "Okay, that's shifting a paradigm. Hey, they're not short with grey skin and huge eyes, are they?"

HumanBuffy, chuckling – "No. They're not."

Willow – "Actually, Buffys, some of them are."

HumanBuffy, cringing – "Really?"

VampBuffy, also cringing – "So what's the deal with the anal probes?"

Willow – "No idea. We should probably start calling some people up."

Tara – "And Faith needs some clothes."

Faith, nodding – "I could do with some socks. My feet are getting cold."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later.

Faith walked out of the training room in some track pants, a singlet and some cheap sneakers. She proceeded to sit on a chair, leaned back and rest her feet on the table.

Giles – "I told you before. You'll break the chair doing that."

Faith frowned and put her feet back down.

VampBuffy sniffed a little bit and frowned at Harmony.

VampBuffy – "Harmony, something has been bugging me. Why do you smell so much like Giles?"

Harmony – "He's my boyfriend."

VampBuffy looked between Giles and Harmony. Both seemed a little embarrassed.

VampBuffy, to the others – "How the hell did that happen?"

Faith, laughing – "How'd you think it happened? She got him drunk."

Harmony shrugged with a silly smile.

VampBuffy – "Huh. Why didn't I think of that?"

HumanBuffy, trying her best to ignore that last comment – "So, you want to strategize? Our forces with your forces?"

VampBuffy – "Exactly. Your world seems pretty similar to ours except your vampires live on chocolate and most of you still seem to be human."

Tara – "How many of us have you turned?"

VampBuffy – "Me? Just two. But the rest are vampires from magical mishaps and misadventures. About the only person here who isn't a vampire is Giles. But he's still acts as my watcher, which is nice."

Giles – "I do?"

VampBuffy – "Oh yeah. Slayers turn into vampires all the time in my world. The council don't seem to mind as long as we keep on slaying vampires. Umm, look, I should probably be getting back."

HumanBuffy – "Already? But you just got here."

Harmony, laughing – "Are you two bonding?"

VampBuffy, ignoring Harmony – "Yeah, I should get back. Who knows what they're doing in my absence. Probably another drunken orgy."

Faith, liking this idea – "Really?"

VampBuffy, trying not to smile too much – "I'll be back tomorrow some time. If you can, you guys should start rallying your forces. And start looking into travelling between dimensions."

VampBuffy took out a metal flask, took a swig and waited for it to take effect.

And waited.

She looked a bit embarrassed for some reason.

VampBuffy, becoming blurry – "I don't think I drank enough? Oh, here I go."

Then she disappeared from the scene, leaving the mostly human Scoobies to think.

Faith – "I don't think undead Buffy was so bad."

Tara – "Yeah, she seemed nice."

Kennedy – "Hello. Is everyone forgetting that she's evil? We all know she'll betray us."

Willow – "Alternates don't tend to kill each other. Like I once met an evil vampire version of myself and they were pretty nice."

Buffy – "To you, at least."

Willow – "Exactly. Except for the whole trying to seduce me to the dark side part, they were quite civil."

Tara, with raised eyebrows – "How come you haven't told me about this before?"

Willow – "It never came up."

Harmony, grinning – "Vamp Willow was a skank."

Willow – "No she wasn't."

Faith, listening to a voice inside her head – "Actually, Xander agrees with Harmony. Vamp Willow was most definitely a skank. But.. she made skank look good? Xander, shut up."

Buffy frowned – "You really have Xander and Dawn inside you?"

Faith – "Yup. But unlike Dawn and Tell, we're separate people. Oh, Dawn and Tell are now separate people too. Apparently they prefer it that way."

Buffy – "I sort of guessed that after you turning into Tell. So how's Dawn handling this?"

Faith, listening to a voice inside her head again – "Uhh, she's fine. Just needs some alone time. Can't blame her."

Giles, bringing a phone out from under the counter – "I don't see any reason not to do as the other Buffy said. Who has the number for the charmed ones and the SGC? I seem to have misplaced my address book."

Willow, pulling out a small PDA – "That would be me."

Willow read from her PDA and punched some numbers into the phone.

Amanda, leaving through the front door – "I'll go get the vamps in Sunnydale ready."

Her small entourage of vampires left after her.

Buffy, pointing to the now empty door – "See, there's proof vampires don't have to be evil."

Spike – "I reckon evil you is still evil, luv. Just not stupid. If there are some big bad demons killing worlds, she sees them as a threat. I wouldn't get too comfortable around her if I were you."

Giles – "As much as it pains me to admit it, that's good advice."

Willow, from the phone – "The charmed ones aren't picking up. I'll call SGC now."

Spike – "I do like one thing she mentioned though. Drunken orgies. Can you imagine you white hats having a drunken orgy?"

Buffy – "I'm sure she was joking about that."

Faith, smirking – "Wouldn't be so sure about that, B."

O-O-O-O

Back in the vampverse.

One-eyed Xander and Faith were in bed, with Xander on top, moving back and forth in slow but deep thrusts, causing the bed stand to smack against the wall each time.

Faith, as dust fell down from the ceiling – "Tell me you love me."

Xander paused.

Xander, with a small laugh – "What?"

Outside their room, it was actually quiet. The designers of the underground city figured out early that soundproofing was a must when you've got an army of sex crazed slayers on your hands.

Despite the forethought put into the architecture, it didn't stop a wall exploding outwards, surprising passersby as a mostly naked Xander was thrown through the wall.

Xander was stunned but not stunned enough to not cover himself up with some bed sheets and try to pick himself back up.

Faith, screaming – "GET OUT!"

Xander, backpedaling away from the angry teenybopper – "I'm out, I'm out!"

She threw his clothes out after him, aiming for his head as she threw his boots out.

Faith, yelling at everyone outside the hole in the wall – "What are you all staring at!?"

Then she proceeded to go trap herself in a closet in an attempt to get away from prying eyes.

Xander, obviously shaken – "That was different."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later and HumanBuffy was driving her way towards Norad. Apparently you're not supposed to chat about matters of global security across an unsecured line.

She was driving in her yellow convertible, in its unconverted state. Willow and Tara were in the back seat chatting about skanky vampire Willow. Faith was in the front passenger seat, looking for all intensive purposes, asleep.

Tara – "So what did vampire you wear?"

Willow, shuddering – "That's the worse part. It was this full body black leather thing with these red frills."

Buffy – "I actually thought it looked good on you."

Willow, surprised – "Really? That!?"

Buffy – "Sure. You wouldn't catch me wearing it though. I'm not that brave."

Tara, with a naughty grin – "Okay, now we have to buy you something like that."

Willow, frowning – "I'm pretty sure she stole it instead of buying it. Despite how tacky it was, it looked expensive."

Buffy looked over at Faith, who really wasn't moving. She hadn't moved for the past five minutes.

Buffy idly wondered what she was doing.

O-O-O-O

Tell, Xander and Dawn were having a heated conversation inside their head. They were having this argument in a large conical room that seemed to be made out of stone. Since this place was somewhat imaginary, you could argue that it wasn't stone but that would be somewhat pointless and pedantic.

The current argument seemed to have Xander pitted against Dawn and Tell.

Xander – "We've got to tell them!"

Dawn – "But you know what it'll do to them."

Tell – "She's right, why break up something that's beautiful?"

Xander – "It's not beautiful. It's perverse. How can you two defend this?"

Dawn, sullen – "I just want them to be happy."

Tell – "I'll tell you how I can defend it. It's human nature."

Xander – "No! It's not. You're not even human! So shut up"

Tell, much more calmly than Xander – "Let me explain. All humans come from a mother and a father, correct?"

Xander – "Correct. I don't see what -"

Tell, cutting him off – "Let me finish. Those mothers and fathers each have a mother and father between them. Your 4 grandparents each have a mother and father too. So that's 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 great great great grandparents."

Xander, a little confused – "I don't see where you're going with this."

Dawn, more confused – "I don't either."

Tell – "After 20 generations, you would need over a million people to support just your existence. By 50 generations, you need more people than there are in recorded history, just so you can exist. Do you know why this isn't the case?"

Tell gave them some time to think about it while Faith quietly snuck away, having already eavesdropped enough.

O-O-O-O

Faith righted herself in the car seat and rubbed her neck, as it was a bit sore.

Buffy – "Hi Faith. Nice sleep?"

Faith – "Wasn't sleeping. We were having an interesting talk. Thought I should mention it. Hey Red, you know I hate you, right?"

Willow, not so pleasantly – "Yeah. So?"

Faith – "Well, I'm gonna tell you something not because I hate you but because I respect you. Have you ever wondered why you're so good at magic?"

Willow frowned – "Not really. It's just practice."

Faith – "It aint just practice. It's genetics. See, your bio mom and bio dad both used magic. They were good at it too."

Buffy – "How would you know that?"

Faith – "Being an echo is a trip, B. You have no idea how much Dawn's been keeping from you. She knows all sorts of things. You know how Dawn was dying? That guy who zapped her was Willows dad. Oh, and then Dawn killed him. Sorry Red. If you wanna know more about him, just ask Spike about a guy called Rack. He'll fill you in."

Willow – "You're telling us Dawn just killed my real father?"

Faith – "Yup but he was a real asshole so no big loss. Your mom really knew how to pick them. Talking of which, we move on to the next juicy bit. Tara, why don't you tell us when you first heard about Sunnydale?"

Tara – "My mom grew up here. Why?"

Faith – "That's right. Tara's mom grew up in Sunnydale. She was into magic too. When she was a kid, she got hooked on the bad type of magic. That's kinda how she met Rack. But your mom was strong. She got off the black mojo but it took something deeply emotionally disturbing to shake her loose. Something happened which shook her to her very core, made her get out of Sunnydale and settle down in the countryside far from black magic pushers. That's right, everyone. Willow happened."

Buffy stared at Faith and couldn't find a hint of a lie. In fact, Faith seemed pretty pleased with herself.

Faith – "Better keep your eyes on the road, Buffy."

Buffy – "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Faith, looking out the window – "Sadly, yes. Sorry girls. You're sisters."

Buffy – "That totally can't be true."

Faith – "It's a small world, B. They were the only two witches in their University. They were bound to hook up eventually. It's the magic. It's an aphrodisiac. Also, Tara, you were married to Tell in a previous life. I think that's even more messed up."

Buffy – "Either you've suddenly learnt how to lie properly or..."

Faith didn't reply, preferring to let it all sink in.

From then on, it was a really awkward ride to Stargate control.

O-O-O-O

Back in their mindscape.

Dawn – "This is kinda gross."

Xander – "You're trying to tell me that incest isn't just normal but it's unavoidable?"

Tell – "That's right. If humans really came from Adam and Eve then I'm pretty sure God doesn't mind it. So why should you? Besides, it's not as if Tara and Willow are going to have mutant children."

Xander groaned – "I hate you."

Tell grinned – "That's good to know. I must be doing something right."

Xander – "So how are we going to do this?"

Tell, frowning – "Do what?"

Xander, arms up to encompass everything – "This! This echo thing."

Tell – "Oh. Uh. Is that a problem?"

Xander – "Yes, it's a problem. Like, so far, Faith has been in control. When Faith and control are used in the same sentence, you'll usually hear out-of stuck in there too."

Dawn – "And I wanna talk to my friends."

Xander – "Same."

Tell, to Xander – "Well, you definitely can't take control right now. Faith is probably wearing girl sized clothes. You'd find yourself all incredible hulk style half naked with busted shoes and... hold on. I don't talk like that."

Tell looked over at Dawn then winced.

Tell – "Crap. I'm talking like you."

Dawn – "There's nothing wrong with how I talk."

Tell – "No, of course there isn't. It's just a bit more free form than I'm used to."

Xander – "So what are we going to do?"

Dawn – "We could take turns."

Xander – "But what if we get into a fight? Shouldn't we have a designated fighter?"

Tell – "I'd be the most experienced in being an echo. So, maybe I should fight."

Dawn – "But Faith's a slayer. She'd be way stronger than you."

Tell – "Umm. I don't know how this situation came about but I'm pretty sure she's no longer a slayer."

Xander – "Why not?"

Tell – "Look, the thing about echoes is that they're not perfect clones. You can't just make an echo of a god and expect the echo to have the same powers of a god. It doesn't work like that. Whatever slayer powers Faith had, she won't have anymore. In fact, she'll probably be the worst fighter out of all of us."

Dawn – "Yeah, she wouldn't be used to being so weak. What about Xander? He's the biggest out of all of us and you're the smallest."

Tell – "Hmm. Mass does seem to help a little. But he will be the slowest. Dawn, I lost a lot of my speed when I merged with you."

Xander – "Maybe we should have a little tournament. See who's the best fighter."

Dawn – "If it's me, I'd laugh so hard. But we should really give Faith a chance. Let her get used to being a non-slayer."

Tell shrugged, seemingly okay with anything.

Xander – "Sure. Why not. She might surprise us."

O-O-O-O

At Stargate control, Buffy, Faith and Willow were sitting in a small conference room. The President of the United States was there via a video-conference call.

President Hayes, on a large plasma TV – "Our policy concerning alternate realities is one of non-interference. We already have enough problems without meddling with other realities."

Willow, surprisingly confident considering what just happened – "I don't think you understand the threat. We're talking about invaders from other realities."

President Hayes – "But aren't there nearly an infinite number of alternate universes? Wouldn't it be prudent to deal with them after we finish dealing with the Goa'uld? I don't want to start fighting on two fronts."

Willow – "As of eight hours ago, our reality has been quarantined. We believe it's a response to this situation. That means instead of an infinite number of universes, we have… less."

O'Neil – "Quarantined? You didn't mention that. And what does that mean? How did this happen?"

Willow, less sure of herself – "I don't have a clue."

Buffy, putting her two cents in – "Whoever did it was obviously very powerful and didn't want to deal with these face eaters. That suggests to me that they're a very real threat."

Willow – "I don't think this is something we can afford to ignore."

O'Neil – "Excuse me but you got all this from alternates who were vampires?"

Buffy – "Yes."

O'Neil – "And aren't they, as you would say it, evil?"

Faith – "We did give them that band candy, didn't we?"

Buffy, nodding – "Most of them, yeah."

President Hayes – "At this juncture, I can't responsibly authorize anything. What we need is more intel. Most importantly, we'll need intel on these vampires of yours. I was given the impression that we cannot negotiate with vampires, so I'll need something solid before I even think about that."

Buffy – "They said they'll be coming back tomorrow. I'm guessing tomorrow night. So we can find more out about them then. But we should have something to show them, just to show that we're taking them seriously."

O'Neil – "She's right. Even if they are lying, we should at least act like we're playing along just to find out what they're playing at."

President Hayes – "If it turns out that this is as bad as you paint it, I'd like you to think about evacuating your team to the alpha site."

Buffy, confused – "Alpha site?"

O'Neill – "It's a world through the star gate. We keep important things there. If earth fell because of something supernatural, we could do with you guys staying alive. You know more about it than we do. You might be too valuable to risk losing."

Buffy – "Come on. You expect me to hide on some other planet while earth gets destroyed?"

Willow, to Buffy – "We could send some people. Like maybe Giles? He knows more about demons than anyone I know. More than me and I read an awful lot."

Then, unexpectedly, sirens bleeped out some noise.

A male voice across the PA - "Unscheduled stargate activation."

O'Neil, with a finger on the earpiece he wore – "Where's it from?"

There was a pause as he listened.

O'Neil – "Outgoing? What do you mean it's outgoing? How do we have an unscheduled dialing?"

He stood out of his chair and looked through thick windows, down into the stargate room. What he saw there didn't make that much sense.

What he saw was a girl holding an axe, walking towards the stargate as the giant ring dialed up some other planet.

Willow – "Tara!? What's she doing?"

Buffy – "I have no idea."

Willow, banging on the glass – "She's too close! If it activates, she'll be vaporized!"

O'Neil, yelling into his earpiece – "GET THAT GIRL OUT OF THERE!"

Someone yelling from outside – "The doors are jammed! We can't get in."

O'Neil, still talking to his earpiece - "Where are the guards for the gate room? Why isn't anyone down there?!"

Buffy - "Faith. The window. On three."

Faith nodded and held back her arm, in preparation to punch the thick protective window in front of them.

O'Neil- "Don't bother. That's bomb proof."

Buffy - "Three!"

They both struck the window, fist first, and the brickwork around it broke and large fractures sprung to life on the window but it was still very much in one piece.

But Buffy and Faith weren't going to let that stop them. They punched once more and more fractures appeared while a small jagged hole appeared in the window as part of the window broke free. While Buffy pulled back for another coordinated attack, Faith stood back so she could do a running dive at the window.

Faith ran and hit the jagged hole head first and slipped through with a disturbingly wet sound, leaving the edges covered with small shreds of torn clothes and a noticeable amount of blood.

Below, Faith landed with a loud thud on the metal ramp leading up to the star gate. Moving with the momentum of the roll, she rose up from the ground and quickly rushed forwards to grab Tara.

From above, it looked like Faith reached Tara in time but at the last second, they were blinded by a bright blue flash. When they looked back, they saw that Faith had fallen into power cables and miscellaneous spare parts that had been dumped behind the stargate. She was still in one piece but Tara was nowhere to be found.

There was no stargate portal either. It was as if nothing happened.

Guy on the PA - "Portal did ... not initiate. What just happened?"

O'Neil - "What the hell was that? Goddamnit. Someone wake up Sam."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else, in a land far away.

Tara groaned and slowly, carefully put a weak hand up to her head. It felt like she hit the floor hard. As she opened her eyes, she found herself somewhere completely different. It didn't look familiar at all. The people surrounding her, armed with guns, didn't look familiar either. But at least they weren't shooting her yet.

Tara - "I-I come in peace?"

A soldier - "Where did you come from?"

Tara looked behind her and saw a stargate, put two and two together and came to a somewhat reasonable conclusion.

Tara – "I come from a planet called Earth."

The others shared looks of confusion.

Another soldier - "Really? You come from Earth?"

First soldier – "Oh, hey, I've seen her somewhere before. I got it! Remember how I told you about those two witches back in the SGC? This is one of those witches."

The other soldier – "Seriously?"

First soldier, to Tara – "Did you get here with magic?"

Tara - "Probably. I don't really remember. I sort of blacked out there. Uh, did I just come through the stargate?"

This seemed to please them as they put down their weapons, started smiling and helped her up.

Tara - "Hi, I'm Tara. So where am I?"

The previously skeptical soldier told her – "You're in Atlantis."

Tara - "Oh. Really? Didn't that sink?"

O-O-O-O

Dawn, slowly waving a hand out in front of the stargate – "Yup. She teleported."

Willow, still quite distraught – "But why?"

Buffy – "I'm guessing it has something to do with her magic scythe. It obviously put her up to this."

Samantha Carter, with slightly ruffled hair – "I hate to tell you this but if she was caught in the event horizon when it –"

Dawn, cutting her off – "She's not dead. Trust me. She's not dead. I'd know. It's a psychic power I have."

Buffy – "Talking of which, Dawn, why are you checking this out? Wouldn't Tell be better?"

Dawn, dropping her hand – "When we split, I seemed to get most of the magical talent. To be honest, Tell was never that good at it anyway."

Buffy, a little disapproving – "I don't think I like this."

Dawn, smiled brightly – "Acting kinda sisterly there, aren't you? Relax, Buffy. Echoes don't self destruct like humans do when they go bad with magic. At worst, we get drunk and stab people with rubber knives. Oh, and sorry about that."

Buffy – "Water under the bridge. So do you know where Tara went?"

Dawn, frowning – "Sorry. No idea. I can't get a scent here. Maybe Willow could scry for her."

Willow – "Or maybe she just teleported to wherever the gate dialed."

Sam Carter, a little tired – "It's too early in the morning for this."

O'Neil – "Oh. I know what happened. Hey, this feels sort of good. I know the technical reason why the stargate didn't open properly and you don't, Sam."

Sam Carter didn't look like she cared that much. Instead she just waited for an explanation.

O'Neil – "The gate didn't open because she dialed somewhere we can't dial. We can't dial it because it's too far away and we don't the power to properly open a gate there."

Sam – "But if we can't open a gate to this place then why would we… Oh! Oh, I just had an idea. When you supply normal amounts of power for a gate that's too far away, you get the beginning of an opening sequence but it doesn't finish. But for a fraction of a second millisecond, you have a microscopic wormhole. We were thinking of using it for communication purposes. But… can you magically teleport through a microscopic wormhole?"

Willow – "I didn't know Tara even could teleport. That's sort of high end magic. She's more into crystals and herbs."

O'Neil, finding this a little funny – "Herbs?"

Buffy, to O'Neil – "Do you know where she went?"

O'Neil – "If she did go through, she went to Atlantis."

Buffy, looking at him askew – "Didn't that sink?"

O-O-O-O

End of chapter

Continued in next episode


	52. 16a More talk

Episode 16, Chapter A : More talk.

Authors notes : Did I go too far with Willow and Tara being sisters? Yeah, I think I might've gone too far. I'll try to make it up to them.

O-O-O-O

Buffy, Willow and Twist had gone to the VampVerse with some generals and soldiers from the SGC, as they wanted to check over the resources the vamps had at their disposal and their combat readiness/threat level.

It was partially to see if they were telling to truth and part fact finding mission. They mostly wanted to know what damage the vampires could do if they turned against them. They met with a few of Buffy's "generals" and got a dime tour of the operation.

One of the officials from the SGC was horrified that the slayers were literally using medieval equipment. Buffy the succubus decided not to mention that several of the slayers still had their own suits of plate mail armor from when they were human.

Then they separated to interview key figures such as watcher council members who were working with the vampires and people dealing with the logistics.

The visit also represented a step towards getting the SGC to reach out to the human government of Succubus Buffy's world. This was mostly prompted by SuccubusBuffy as, weirdly enough, most government officials don't trust the undead.

Somehow, during all the officialdom, Buffy had found herself sitting next to VampWillow in SuccubusBuffy's large yet surprisingly cozy personal office on a plush couch. When the aforementioned Succubus sat down next to her on the couch, she realized that this had all been a trap.

HumanBuffy, trying to be cheerful – "It's a nice cave you have. Probably the best nest I've ever seen."

SuccubusBuffy – "I get that it's not up to human standards but for us fang heads, it's great. Something about the rock here focuses the demonic energy from the hellmouth so it bounces around up in here. It's like a demony tanning booth."

HumanBuffy - "And that's good?"

SuccubusBuffy, considering this with a wicked smile - "Hmm. Maybe not. But we seem to like it."

Willow gently blew into Buffy's ear, who squealed.

A very human Buffy, laughing – "Can you stop it already?"

A not so human Willow – "I'll stop when you stop being such a sexy tease."

Buffy, to her succubus Twin – "How do you deal with this every day?"

Succubus Buffy, sliding closer – "It's easy. I just give her what she wants."

Buffy felt herself get trapped in her alternate's eyes and felt unadulterated lust literally flood into her through the connection. As she gasped, her succubus self smoothly leant in and gave her probably the best kiss she had ever felt.

It didn't even feel remotely like when she experimentally kissed Faith the coma patient.

Buffy, trembling with emotion – "God, this is –"

She forgot what she was going to say as her undead alternate lowered her head and kissed her at the base of her neck, getting awfully close to the silver cross necklace Angel had given her. She felt a tongue plunge down the front of her chest and suddenly her necklace chain was pulled gently taut. When the succubus looked up at her, she was smiling with two slightly oversized and very sharp canines and the cross resting on her tongue. There wasn't even a hint of a sizzle, unless you count the sexy look in her eyes.

SuccubusBuffy, with the cross trapped between her teeth – "I guess God isn't going to help you here."

Part of her was wondering why the cross wasn't burning her but most of her was thinking "why is that so freaking hot?"

Any more thought was cut off by Willow taking her head in her hands and claiming her mouth. They gently turned her and leant her backwards so she lying lengthways along the couch and she felt her alternate lean over her and give her some light sucking kisses on her neck.

Normally, that would be a definite no-go zone for Buffy around the undead but it just turned her on even more. Then her undead twin lifted up one of her legs and started kissing the underside of her knee. The very human Buffy let out a strangled delirious moan then abruptly pushed both the vampires away as the sensations just got too much for her.

HumanBuffy, holding her arms out at full length – "Stop! I am totally not ready for this!"

Willow, gently pushing aside one of Buffy's arms – "Yes, you are."

HumanBuffy, quickly getting off the couch – "No! I am way too freaked out right now. That is the strangest thing I've ever done."

Willow, a little whiny – "But it'll feel good if you let it."

SuckyBuffy, holding Willow back with a gentle hand – "Willow, if she doesn't want to go any further, we won't force her."

HumanBuffy, having trouble standing up properly – "Thank Christ for that. You two have done this sort of thing before, haven't you?"

SuckyBuffy, smirking – "Is it that obvious? But you liked it, didn't you?"

Buffy, sheepishly – "Uh, some of it I enjoyed a little."

SuckyBuffy, frowning with confusion – "Just a little? Really?"

Buffy – "Oh alright. Most of it immensely. You know I did. I'm not even gay. It's because of that eye thing you did."

VampWillow, maybe a little angry – "You're still sticking with the you're-not-gay story? After that?"

SuckyBuffy – "Willow, I think she just needs time to process all this. We'll get her next time."

Buffy – "Next time? There's not going to be a next time."

SuckyBuffy, smiling smugly – "If you say so."

Buffy, aghast – "You.. You really are evil, aren't you?"

VampWillow, crawling along the couch to her lover – "Only in the best possible ways."

The two girls on the couch shared tongues and Buffy felt a tug somewhere in her body to get back on that couch with them.

Buffy – "Okay, I really need to get out of here now. Uh, bye."

And with that, she left.

Willow, to Buffy – "Do you really think it was wise, telling her about next time?"

Buffy – "Trust me. She'll be shivering with anticipation."

Willow, fascinated by that idea – "Oooh. That's hot."

Outside, Buffy passed by plenty more undead giving her alluring glances, naughty smirks and enticing appraisals. They all watched her walk by with predators like eyes, saying things like "Hi Buffy" and "Looking delish, Buffy." and even "Why does Buffy look so hot today?"

By the way they looked at her it seemed they all knew something she didn't. But she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She eventually found who she was looking for, Willow and the rest of the military minds from her dimension.

Buffy – "I am so glad to see you."

Willow, seeing that Buffy had gone through an ordeal – "Buffy, are you okay? Did something happen?"

Buffy – "Nothing too bad. Let's just say, wow, I'm popular here."

Willow – "I'm not. It seems everyone's angry at me for keeping you to myself."

Buffy – "You know, I've never really thought this before but right now, I really wish I was gay. I'd never run out of fun down here."

Willow, finding this funny – "I'm sure they won't mind teaching you."

Buffy, finding that a little funny too – "Don't you start too. I got enough from evil you. So what are we waiting on? Shouldn't we be getting back?"

Willow – "The vamps are filling up a storage tape full of stuff. It'll be finished soon. Then we'll be drinking ourselves back home. Why don't you make chitchat with the nice vampires like Twist is doing? They seem to like you."

Buffy looked over to Twist, who was talking to a blue-haired Fred.

Willow, at Buffy's somewhat confused look – "Not a demon. An elder god."

Buffy – "Seriously?"

Willow – "I know. They're so much cuter in person."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere entirely different.

On an inhospitable planet, a continual storm raged as the star it orbited superheated the upper atmosphere, pulling up huge dust clouds from the surface as the atmosphere boiled.

The surface was a different story. The dust clouds blocked out the sun, creating an endless winter which three hapless adventures had found themselves in. They were trudging through hardened permafrost, looking for evidence of life. But the going was tough and the wind chilled the strength out of their poorly covered bodies.

Faith, yelling over the sucking wind – "What the hell is with this weather?"

Xander from the future, also yelling – "No idea."

Faith – "Let's get out of here already!"

He found something metal on the ground and picked it up. He wiped some of the dirt off it and realized it was a Californian license plate.

Xander – "Okay, let's go!"

Xander, Faith and Tara all pulled out metal flasks and drank them before the contents froze.

O-O-O-O

SuckBuffy's office.

"Catch"

Succubus Buffy didn't need to stop kissing Willow to catch the license plate Xander had tossed her way.

Buffy, slowly extracting herself from Willow - "What's this?"

Xander - "The only proof that life existed on the world we just went to. I don't know where they are now but I'm guessing they're dead."

Faith – "Yeah, that place was colder than Boston."

Tara – "I think they killed the environment."

Xander, a little skeptically – "Global warming? Really? You really think with all the demons and gods and evil things trying to kill humanity, we'd kill ourselves first?"

Tara, a little defensively – "It could happen."

Xander, to Buffy – "We didn't get far on that world. Couldn't see anything because there was this crazy dust storm and that cold, nothing could live in that. It was a dead world."

Faith – "I am so going to have a hot bath now. You're all invited. Cept you, Willow. You can go jump."

Xander gave her a sideways glance from his one good eye but she didn't seem to notice it. She was too busy shuffling off.

Tara, to Buffy - "I need a hot bath too. Parts of me are literally frozen. I really don't want them breaking off."

Buffy – "Okay then. Fine. Take a break. You're not our only group of sightseers. Close the door on the way out."

Outside, Faith kept shuffling along to a hot bath. But she stopped when she saw Cordelia walking in her direction with the Cordettes moving in formation behind her. They were dressed to kill and Faith, even in her half frozen state, thought they looked great.

Faith, as they passed by her – "Hey, Cordy. Looking good."

Cordelia ignored her as she was too busy looking important..

It seemed that the Cordettes got trapped at the Bronze when the wholesale slaughter started. They got killed then dragged to the underground city where they were brought back to life as vampires and then promptly slayerized.

Both Xanders agreed it was proof that God didn't exist.

Faith, shouting – "Then fuck you too!"

Blue haired Fred, suddenly standing next to Faith – "When Cordelia told me she was a bitch in highschool, I didn't believe her until I went back in time and saw it for myself."

Faith – "Oh, hi. Fred, isn't it?"

Fred – "Short for Winifred."

Faith – "Right. Because, you're sort of girly for a guy. Not that I don't mind that. I think I might even prefer that."

Fred frowned a little – "Are you hitting on me?"

Faith – "Nah. Maybe a little. I just thought it'd be cool to see what the fuss is about. After all, Xander's into you in a big way."

Fred frowned a little more – "I'm slowly remembering some of the things I did as Illyria and, I've got to say, she doesn't do things the way I do. We're really two different people. So if you enjoy torture, you might want to try someone else. Besides, I'm feeling very asexual nowadays. It might have something to do with not being human anymore."

Faith, confused – "A sexual? Huh? You're horny?"

One eyed Xander, coming up behind Faith – "Faith, Asexual means the opposite of horny."

Faith – "Oh. Sorry to hear that."

Xander, nodding with respect to Fred – "Fred."

Fred, looking more than a little embarrassed – "Hi, Xander. Umm, I'm going to stand over there. Don't mind me."

And so Fred, moved away to stand somewhere other than near Xander who made her feel very uncomfortable.

Xander, almost casually – "I think I might have scared that girl off sex entirely. It's a knack I've got."

Faith – "Look, about before. We were on drugs."

Xander, nodding emphatically – "Totally on drugs."

Faith – "And I'm sorry for throwing you through that wall."

Xander – "Faith, it's okay. I'm sorry for not saying I love you."

Faith, cringing – "I don't want you to say that. Please don't start now."

Xander – "Faith, I know what that drug does to people. It reverts them back to a younger stage in their life."

Faith – "Really? I thought it just made us retards."

Xander – "Whatever stage you were at, you wanted someone to say that to you."

Faith – "Can we not talk about this right now? I think my belt buckle is frozen to my butt."

Xander – "I just want you to know that if you want to talk about it, I'll be here. I might not love you in that way but I do care about you."

Faith looked like she about to say something smart but stopped herself.

Faith – "Thanks. And in between meeting you and boinking you, I've started caring about you too. But everyone knows silly sex is the best sex. So I shouldn't have gone all serious on you. Make up time. Kissy kissy?"

Xander kissed her on the nose, which was less than Faith wanted but she appreciated it with a small smirk. Then she went back to half-waddling her way onto a nice hot shower.

Faith, as she walked – "You want to know what the worst part is? It wasn't even good sex."

Xander, a bit offended – "I thought it was okay."

Faith - "Yeah, you would, minute man. You jumped the gun a bit."

Xander - "That's not normally a problem for me. I blame that chocolate."

Faith, not sure she was buying that – "Uh huh. Well, we're not on it now, so you could show me what a big man you really are."

Xander, groaned – "Faith. I, uh, I don't really want to go down that road with you. I think of you as a good friend and sex would just complicate that."

Faith, stopping with a serious look on her face – "Haven't you ever heard of friends with bennies? Besides you didn't get me off last time. Hell, you've never gotten me off! So that's like two times you owe me."

Xander, trying not to laugh – "You're keeping score?"

Faith – "Yes, I am! And I don't care if you didn't have a soul that first time, you're still going to pay up."

Xander, sighing – "I'm sure I'll work something out. Does saving your life count?"

Faith – "Even if it did, you only did that once. So you'd still owe me another one."

Xander – "What if I get you laid with someone else?"

Faith thought about this – "Only if it's Tara. Or Buffy. Or twins. Always wanted to try twins. Or two guys."

Xander groaned, reckoning that he would never be able to get that to happen and Faith would be bugging him about this for the rest of his unlife.

Faith – "Or Fred. She looks like a freak."

O-O-O-O

Fred, meanwhile, wasn't doing anything too freaky. Unless you count talking to Twist again, which might count.

In the background, Fox and Buddy are looking at Twist. Trying to figure out where they knew them from.

Buddy - "I know I've seen him somewhere before."

Fox – "Yeah. It's bugging the hell out of me."

The not quite so ancient Buffy from the future came along and wondered what they were doing.

FutureBuffy – "Hey guys. What are you doing?"

Fox – "Checking out the new guys. Hey, do you know where we know that guy from? We can't figure it out. Is he on TV or something?"

FutureBuffy followed their gaze then blinked at Twist, as if thinking she was seeing things.

FutureBuffy, walking towards Twist – "Omigod. I know him."

Twist was surprised as FutureBuffy picked him up and gave him a big hug.

Twist, a little constricted by the bear hug – "Hi there, other Buffy. You vampires sure are hospitable."

FutureBuffy, laughing – "Oh, I'm sorry. You don't remember me. Umm. It's like this. I'm from the future. We sort of were a couple back then."

Twist and the human versions of Buffy and Willow all looked at her with confused looks.

FutureBuffy – "I know it's a lot to drop on you and it might not happen this time, Morty, but we worked well together. It was going awesome until the whole face eater thing, what with me being possessed by the first evil and everyone dying and such."

Twist – "Sorry but you've mistaken me for someone else."

VampDawn from the future, giving Twist a hug too – "Morty? Omigod. Morty!"

Twist – "My name's not Morty."

FutureBuffy, rolling her eyes – "Okay, Immortal."

VampWillow from the future, laughing – "That's what the Immortal looks like? Why didn't you tell me? Buffy, you were dating a kid!"

HumanBuffy – "Are you serious? Alternate me was dating an alternate Twist?"

Buffy from future – "Ahh. An alternate Immortal. Should've figured."

Twist – "Look, you've got this all wrong. You see, unlike you humans, echoes don't get alternates. There's only ever one of us in existence. When new realities are created, we don't get created with them."

Buffy from the future, looking at Twist oddly – "No, you're the immortal. Maybe not the one I know but you definitely look and sound like him."

Twist – "I'm sorry but you're mistaken."

Human Buffy – "Twist, didn't you say that there were thousands of echoes made?"

Twist – "Yes but the likelihood of just stumbling across one is mind-bogglingly huge. It's astronomical. You see, there was this cataclysmic event in our original dimension which scattered us all throughout existence. The only reason Tell and I ended up in the same dimension was because we were both stuck in a containment field. The containment field acted like a life raft of a sort when the cataclysm happened."

Human Buffy – "But it's still possible there's one in this dimension too, isn't it?"

Twist – "It's very unlikely."

Buffy from the future leaned over and whispered something in Twist's ear.

Twist, strangely calm – "Oh, you know about the hermaphrodite thing. Maybe you're not mistaken. Could you, maybe, just tell me where he is? I'd really like to know."

Buffy from the future – "When I knew him he was living in Vatican city but no one seems to know anything about him here now."

Twist – "So? Why would they?"

Buffy from the future – "The immortal is kind of a big thing."

Twist – "Sister, I'm kind of a big thing but that doesn't mean I'm famous. I say we go to Vatican city and find him."

Buffy from the future – "I don't think you understand what I'm saying. He's not there. If he was there, he'd be running the place. He's a mover and shaker. Wherever he is, everyone will know about him, trust me."

Twist thought about this and groaned – "Crap. You're from the future, right?"

Buffy from the future – "Yes, I am from the future."

Twist – "The last time you saw this Immortal, he wasn't getting torn apart by pan-dimensional fiends, was he?"

Buffy from the future – "Umm. Yeah. But that wouldn't kill him. He was pretty darn indestructible. It'd just slow him down."

Twist – "Trust me. I know how tough echoes can be. But I just had a sinking feeling. You went back in time. If you went back in time with the immortal in a different dimension, due to a retroactive history rewrite, it would be as if he never came to this dimension."

Buffy from the future – "Huh? I don't get it."

Twist – "I'll say it very simply. There is only one me and one Immortal. I am only ever in one dimension at one time. Do you follow?"

Buffy from the future, not appreciating being talked to like a child – "Yes, I follow."

Twist – "If this Immortal really is an echo and he is in a different dimension, what do you think happens? Because in your history, he's there. But he can't be there because he's not in the right dimension."

Buffy from the future, frowning – "I don't know. Wouldn't he just disappear at the instance I arrive from the future?"

Twist – "This is why they really should teach temporal physics in school. No, he doesn't just disappear. That's too digital. You should be thinking more along the lines of fluid dynamics instead of straight mechanics. What you get is a temporal vacuum. A negative space where the Immortal once was but isn't anymore. This allows for some truly freaky crap. For instance, if you look way into the past, like a few centuries, it will appear as if he does exist back there. You'll start getting historical inaccuracies and anachronistic behavior. That's because this sort of thing isn't a natural occurrence. It's also why I don't like mucking around with time travel. It's just too strange."

Fred – "So you're saying he's not going to be in this dimension now because he was removed from it in the future."

Twist – "Yes. Exactly. When thinking about time travel, consider this. There is an existential time stream which doesn't change. It always moves at the same speed. Certain dimensions, such as hell dimensions, do seem to move faster than others but that's just because of temporal laminar flow. They're actually not moving faster. They're all working on the same timeframe. Now when one dimension goes back in time, it doesn't change the entire stream, it just changes part of it. It's as if that dimension moves backwards, which is the entire basis of time travel."

Buffy from the future – "Is anyone understanding this?"

Outtaverse Willow – "No. He's mixing sciences."

Fred, frowning – "Yeah, you can't do that."

Twist – "Oh really? Are the science police going to stop me? They do this sort of thing on sci fi shows all the time. They don't seem to find anything wrong with it so why should I?"

Human Buffy, a little concerned – "Twist, you seem to be getting a bit worked up about this."

Twist, frowning – "Maybe you're right. It's just, the possibility that there's another echo out there and the bad guys must have him. It doesn't sit right with me. It's got me rattled. I think I'll go sit down."

Twist sat down on a nearby seat to process this.

Human Buffy, to Buffy from the future – "I take it this Immortal guy didn't tell you anything about where he come from?"

Buffy from the future – "No. He's got this mysterious thing going on. It was actually kinda sexy."

Human Buffy frowned – "I see."

Human Willow, chuckling – "This is pretty funny. I can't picture Buffy with Twist."

Buffy from the future – "Your Twist isn't really like my Immortal at all. And his race is called echoes? And they all look the same."

Fred, frowning with concern – "They're clones. Feral clones."

Human Buffy – "They've got issues. That's for sure."

Fred – "Do you know what they're cloned from?"

Human Buffy – "Yes, I do. And despite that, I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt. What I think we can rely on is, he wants to find this immortal guy. If the bad guys have him, he'll go through them to get what he wants."

Fred, frowning – "They do like to swarm. But unlike you, I've got memories of what they used to do. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them."

Human Buffy, smirking – "That's fine by me. I can throw them pretty far. But we should probably get back now."

Human Willow, uncorking the potion in her pocket – "Let's hope my spell works."

Human Buffy to her alternate, the Buffy from the future – "If the generals ask, we've already gone back. Twist, we're going. You coming?"

Willow, Buffy and Twist all drank their potions and waited for them to take effect.

Buffy, looking down at her potion – "Is this supposed to taste like banana?"

Willow, starting to look decidedly blurry – "I have no idea."

Then the three drinkers blinked away with a small yellow lightning flash.

O-O-O-O

Back in the Outtaverse.

A large stone table like construction was erected in the training room in the magic box. Above it, a small but dense cloud sprung into existence with yellow lightning rolling through it. It dissipated quickly, leaving Buffy, Willow and Twist in its place.

The door to the training room opened to reveal a smiling Harmony.

Harmony – "So it did work. I didn't waste hours to help move those rocks. Where are the others?"

Twist, hoping off the stone table – "Sightseeing."

Twist then graciously helped Willow down while Betsy looked into the training room with a sour look on her face.

Betsy, resentment on her face – "You sure took your time, Twist. I've been waiting for hours."

Twist, surprised she was there – "Oh. Betsy. I was just in another dimension. You know how it is."

Betsy, looking at Buffy like she was something stuck to her shoe – "Yeah. I know how it is. You gallivanting around with the slayer while I'm stuck here."

Twist – "Betsy, I told you before. I'm not here because of Buffy."

Betsy – "Mmhmm. That's what you said with that last slayer."

Twist – "That was forty years ago."

Betsy – "And the slayer before that."

Twist – "Two hundred years ago."

Betsy – "And let's not forget the slayer before that. In fact, I don't think we can forget her. That's burnt into my brain."

Twist, obviously becoming uncomfortable with where the conversation was heading – "Let's not dig up the past. What happened happened in the past. We've gone over it again and again and it'll never happen again."

Betsy, smiling at Buffy – "I wonder what she'd think of you if I told her about it. I really should warn her."

Twist – "Betsy, please. Let's not go there. Buffy and I are just acquaintances. Nothing more."

Betsy – "So why are you spending so much time with her?"

Twist – "She asked for my help. You know me. I know stuff."

Betsy, considering this – "Yes. You can be useful. Okay, I'll let it pass. This time. But if I see you even look at her the wrong way, I'll tear the flesh from your bones. You hear me?"

Twist, quite seriously – "I hear you."

Then Betsy flashed bright red and disappeared, obviously teleporting away.

Twist let out a sigh while Buffy and Willow looked at him with worry.

Buffy – "So your girlfriend is a psycho, huh?"

Twist – "More or less. But I actually do love her. She just gets jealous sometimes."

Buffy – "She doesn't know about your, uh, job?"

Twist, smiling – "Oh yeah, she knows alright. A lot of my contacts actually come through her. She just doesn't like it when I get emotionally attached to other people, other than her."

Harmony, trying not to laugh and failing – "She's your pimp?"

Twist, leaving the training room – "She likes to think so."

Buffy, following him - "So, you have a thing for slayers?"

Twist groaned – "Trust me, you don't want to know."

Buffy – "And I thought Tell was the shy one."

Twist, entering the main magic box area - "He's shy about this too."

Kennedy, seeing that they're back – "Hey guys. Have fun with slutty Buffy?"

Buffy frowned – "Please don't ever say that again."

The magic box was quite full today. Mostly with security personnel but also with a few people from stargate control.

Kennedy, to Willow – "And did you meet your vampire twin? I bet she was awesome."

Willow - "I've met vampire me before. It's nothing new. But yes, she's awesome."

Jack O'Neil, from stargate control – "Where are the others?"

Buffy – "They're still taking the dime tour. They'll probably be back soon, colonel."

Jack O'Neil - "Actually, it's major now."

Buffy - "Really? You don't really come off as a major sort of guy."

Major O'Neil - "That's what I said. But they didn't listen. I don't suppose you three found anything out about this supposed face eater threat your vampire was talking about?"

Buffy and Willow shared a look while Twist noticed that his shoes needed shining yet again.

Willow, trying to be helpful - "I was told napalm works if you use enough."

Buffy – "We're still lacking on the face eater side of things. The vamps are testing some face eater remains but they think they'll need to take one alive to figure them out properly."

O'Neil – "That can't be that hard, can it?"

Buffy – "Actually, yeah. It is. All the face eaters on their world died. It seems that they do have one major weakness."

Willow – "Which we probably should've mentioned first."

Buffy, nodding – "They need someone on each world to represent them. If you kill the representative, the face eaters die. In their world, the first possessed the alternate version of me and acted as representative. When the first jumped ship, the face eaters died. I think that's what the first was trying to do with Faith."

O'Neil – "Okay. Find the local representative and kill them. Easy. So what about you, psychic boy. Did you pick anything up psychically?"

Twist – "I think someone has given you the wrong idea. I'm not a psychic detective. The only thing I could pick up was that they all have fertile imaginations "

Buffy – "Weirdly, they seem genuine. They've got a pretty large set up over there. Talking of which, did you track down the charmed ones?"

O'Neil, feeling a bit silly saying their name – "The charmed ones. We can't find them. It looks like they're on vacation. They packed and everything. The same goes for almost everyone in that village full of witches, New Greenwich."

Buffy, trying to tell if he was joking – "Seriously?"

O'Neil nodded while Twist sighed.

Twist – "They evacuated. Remember when Betsy came to get me? She was going to leave this dimension entirely to avoid being quarantined inside it."

Willow – "Why didn't they get us to go with them?"

Twist - "If I was to give them the benefit of the doubt, they probably didn't think of it. They were in a rush. And if they had thought about it, they would've thought we had our own way out."

O'Neil – "But we have contacted some other of your other … associates. The found boys seem really eager to help."

Willow, frowning – "That street gang Dawn was hanging around with?"

O'Neil – "We've also uncovered a few supernatural based agencies. Like the CIA based project which teaches invisible teenagers how to be assassins. We've even found a friend of yours, Riley Finn."

Buffy – "Riley? Really?"

O'Neil, with a smile – "Really Riley. It turns out that there's a massive network which handles the supernatural within our own government. Strangely, after a large number of officials went missing around the same time the charmed ones did, the network broke down. It made it easy to find. We're still in the middle of a massive investigation."

Willow – "That's good. I could probably help with that, if you need it."

O'Neil – "You probably could."

Willow – "Uhh. Is there anything else on the Atlantis front?"

O'Neil, with some regret – "Sorry. Nothing. We don't know what Tara did or how she did it and we don't have any way to contact Atlantis yet. We've been working on that problem for a while. Our best solution, so far, is to send a deep space battle cruiser all the way to the Pegasus galaxy. The trip itself will probably take a few months. That's the best we can do. I don't suppose there's something magical that can be done about it?"

Willow frowned – "Uhh. No. I don't think so. I might be able to reach the moon somehow but another galaxy? No way."

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	53. 16b Public hex

Episode 16, chapter B : Public Hex

Author note : Here's some new content coming your way. Hope you all like it.

O-O-O-O

Future Xander was making his way towards the portal room when Faith ran up alongside him, dressed in full body leather. Xander was wearing something similar but in much more manly way.

Faith, somewhat sarcastically – "Hey BFF. All thawed out and ready for more?"

Xander – "Yup. You'd think being half frozen would slow us down more."

Faith shrugged as she kept walking.

Xander – "What's with the get up?"

Faith – "Should help against wind chill. Don't want to turn into a popsicle again."

Xander – "The next world might be really hot."

Faith – "I can always take it off if I need to, numb nuts"

They entered through large blast doors into the portal room where Dawn was kissing Tara goodbye. French kissing her goodbye would be more accurate.

Right then, Xander could see why Dawn for fell for Tara, as Tara was also wearing full body black leather and he was pretty sure she looked better in it than he did in his. That alone would be enough to convert a straight girl. Even post-evil Xander found himself looking her up and down.

Faith had a different reaction, growling as she lunged forwards and tore a surprised Dawn off Tara then she pushed Dawn against a wall and covered her eyes with one hand. That last part was obviously to stop Dawn doing her favorite mind game on Faith.

Faith, snarly – "Don't you EVER do that around me again or I'll bite your fucking throat out!"

Xander, with a hand on Faith's shoulder – "Faith, calm down."

Dawn managed to push Faith off her and gave the shorter girl a snarl of her own.

Dawn – "What the hell, Faith? Get it through your thick head. You don't own her."

Xander, trying to be diplomatic – "Maybe the chocolate hasn't completely worn off yet."

Dawn – "Or maybe she's just crazy."

Tara – "Dawn, please. Let it go."

Faith, smirking – "Yeah, Dawn. Let it go."

Tara – "You too, Faith. You had no right to assault her like that. I'm not something you can fight over."

Dawn, to Tara – "I'll see you when you get back."

Dawn moved closer to Tara, as if to kiss her again but stopped, turned away and walked off.

A watcher, timidly approaching them – "Is everything okay?"

Faith – "Yeah. Let's just do this mission thing."

The watcher, a nice twenty something man – "We're changing your standing orders for the next few worlds."

Tara, to Faith and Xander – "That's right. We're going to stay there for longer."

The watcher – "Now you've got twenty four hours for your diplomatic efforts."

Tara, putting on a backpack – "And this time, I'm bringing some magic supplies. I'll be able to scry for different things. It might help us find help quicker."

Faith, slowly cooling down but still a bit sore – "I thought you couldn't do magic now that you're a vamp."

Tara – "Vampires can still do certain types of magic. I'll be using alchemy. I'm not an expert at it but I should be able to muddle through."

Xander, to the watcher – "Any particular reason for the change? I thought we were just supposed to pop in, look around and pop back."

The watcher – "We're running out of magic supplies. If we don't get any more, we won't be able to make any more of those potions that bring you home."

Xander – "So we have to make them count. That's fine by me."

Faith – "I actually like it this way. Maybe we can get something done now. Screw this half an hour shtick."

The watcher – "So you're all fine with that?"

The three vampires looked at each other. They all seemed okay with it and gave the watcher affirmative nods.

The watcher – "Fair enough."

The watcher turned to some watchers by a computer work station, gave them a whirly gesture with his finger.

A male watcher with a squeaky voice – "We're opening the portal now."

He gave the other watchers time to secure loose papers and office supplies before activating the magic portal.

The large upright stone circle in the room hummed with power and then a swirling purple and black interdimensional portal sprung to life in its center.

Xander jumped through first while Tara and Faith stayed behind and waited for the other to jump.

Faith, yelling over the sucking sound of the portal – "You first. Go!"

Tara hesitated a bit more but finally jumped through the portal. Faith followed up a few seconds later, giving Tara the necessary time to avoid Faith falling on her.

Then Faith jumped through the portal and found herself flying straight at a brick wall. Luckily for Faith, Tara caught her before she hit it too hard.

Faith, clutching onto Tara – "Damnit! This is the stupidest way to travel ever."

Tara – "Are you okay?"

Faith, disentangling herself – "Yeah. Thanks for the catch."

Faith looked around, finding herself in an suburban setting. Possibly even rural. Right now, they were in an alley way.

It was morning, with the sun rising over the hills in the distance and the air still crisp from the cold of night.

Much to her amusement, she found Xander hiding in a shadow. After a few seconds of the girls looking in his direction, he walked into the light, feeling a little silly.

Xander sniffed the air, his brows furrowed with concentration.

Xander – "I don't think this is Sunnydale. I can't tell where we are. I want to say Nevada but I can't pin it down."

Tara sniffed the air and frowned.

Tara – "All I can smell is Kentucky fried chicken."

Xander – "Let's check this place out."

He started walking down the alleyway and the girls followed him to a sleepy suburban street. There was some guy walking his dog but beyond that, it was reasonably quiet.

The guy gave them a "morning" as he passed by.

Xander gave one back then he turned back into the alleyway they came from. They came across a relatively secluded area where several businesses kept dumpsters and Xander turned to Tara.

Xander – "Do you think you can do some scrying here?"

Tara, looking around the area – "Here? Outside?"

Xander – "We could find an abandoned warehouse or find a public toilet or we could just do it here. If we're quick, no one will catch us."

Faith, smirking – "Real classy, Xander."

Xander – "It doesn't matter where we do it. The end result is the same."

Tara, pulling out a long black shaft – "Fine. You've pressured me into some public hex. So what do we want to find first?"

Xander, watching Tara put the long black shaft into a small tripod – "What can we find? And what are you doing?"

Tara – "It's a spy camera. Hold on a sec and I'll show you what it's for."

She pushed a button on the long black shaft and stood back. Then something was fired out of it with a quiet thud. It flew straight up with a small grey streak behind it. They watched as a page of paper printed out the side of her backpack. She picked it up and showed it to them.

It was an aerial view of the surrounding town.

Tara – "I need a map to scry with. The watchers gave me this to help with that. I think they might've gotten it from those stargate people."

Xander, impressed – "Neat. I didn't know you were computer girl. Makes some sense though."

Tara, going to work laying out magical supplies on the floor – "I'm really not. They just made it easy for me. So, what do we want to we want to find? I can scry for any demons in the area. Or slayers. Or vampires -"

Faith, quickly – "Vampires. I haven't killed anything fun for over a week and I really need a good slay."

Xander – "What about the bringers?"

Faith – "They don't count. They were boring."

Tara, lighting some joss sticks – "I wouldn't have called that particular fight boring."

Faith, growling a little with an evil smile – "I can taste those vampires already."

O-O-O-O

Twenty minutes later.

They walked across a relatively deserted part of town to the only vampire nest on their map. It was inside a large, mostly wooden structure than might have once been a barn. Right now, it was a condemned building site with safety warnings posted outside.

From the street, the Scoobies heard screams coming from inside the structure. At that, they ran with greater urgency with Faith running eagerly in front.

Without thinking much, she kicked in a side door, ran inside and found a large group of vampires seemingly ready for her. As Tara and Xander came in behind her, she realized that they didn't look like normal vampires.

They didn't have a game face at all. But all had some really nasty, sharp looking teeth.

Faith, somewhat dismissively - "Huh. That's different."

The odd vampires looked at them with confusion.

An odd vampire - "They've got stakes?"

Another vampire – "Then they're Idiots. Get them!"

That vampire rushed forwards but not really that fast and Faith staked them with a brutal backhanded stake motion which picked them off the ground and threw them against a wall. But they didn't turn to dust and they still managed to pick themselves off the ground afterwards.

Before she could think about it much, the other vampires swarmed them. She staked another in the heart and they didn't turn satisfyingly into dust either. While her stake was stuck in that chest, several of the vampires beat her to the ground but not too badly. She shrugged off the pain easily enough but she didn't know how to kill them.

Regardless, Xander and Tara followed up her attack, both staking with abandon and not really aiming for anything in particular.

These vampires found themselves easily overpowered and those stake attacks were harming them much more than they'd like too. Several decided to run for it.

Faith, getting up – "These aren't vampires! They're zombies or something."

Some of the fleeing vampires found themselves cut down by two lunatics wielding machetes. Seeing Xander, Tara and Faith having trouble with just their stakes, they waded in and decapitated with practiced skill. But it must be said that the vampires were even less able to fight back due to being stabbed all over the place.

In a surprisingly small amount of time, the group of fanged fiends were all quiet. Not dust but dead none the less.

Xander, as if catching his breath – "Hey, thanks. Uh, those were vampires, right?"

One of the machete wielding lunatics – "Yeah. You were using stakes? Seriously? You guys must be new."

Faith, totally confused – "Huh?"

Now that the action had finished, the Scoobies could analyze their impromptu backup in more detail.

What they saw, Faith liked a lot.

They were both twenty something and in excellent shape. They were also kinda pretty.

While the Scoobies checked them out, they checked the Scoobies out. That's when things got a bit weird.

The younger hunter, to Tara – "Lenore?"

Tara looked behind her then realized the younger Hunter was talking to her.

Tara – "I think you have me confused with someone else."

The younger hunter – "Lenore. It's me. Remember that guy who sort of saved your life?"

Tara – "Sorry, you've totally got the wrong person. I'm called Tara… It's nice to meet you."

Both hunters tilted their heads as they checked Tara out.

The older hunter – "Am I tripping or she lying?"

The younger hunter, grinning – "Lenore, seriously. Changing your hairstyle isn't a perfect disguise. Also, kind of a give away considering we're in a vampire nest. Give it up, we've caught you red handed."

Tara frowned, totally not understanding what he was talking about.

That's when the younger hunter swung his machete at her neck. She ducked under in and it whizzed through her hair. When he followed up with another swing, Faith tackled him to the ground. He seemed completely caught off guard by how powerful the small girl was.

While this was going on, Xander was trying to subdue the older hunter and actually having a lot of trouble. He had managed to grab hold of the machete only to get punched in the face. When Xander grabbed the hunter's free arm, they let loose a brutal groin to knee followed instantaneously by a head butt.

Xander decided that he really wasn't liking where this fight was going. So he tried to properly subdue the hunter by bouncing him off a wall so hard that it'd wind him.

The hunter had other plans and managed to hold on.

Both of them smashed through the dilapidated wooden wall and then broke through the floorboards on the other side. They fell into the basement with the hunter somehow managing to land on top of Xander.

Then the fight started again with earnest as they struggled for the machete and traded blows.

Much to Xander's surprise, the hunter could take everything he dished out in the way of punches.

Then the machete was pried free, out of Xander's grip and he feared the worst.

Fortunately for him, it was Faith who placed the machete against the hunters throat.

Faith, picking the hunter off Xander – "Don't make me kill you. It'd be a waste of that fine ass."

The Hunter seemed completely freaked out that this little girl was so strong but didn't say anything.

Xander groaned as he picked himself up and realized that he had a nail stuck in his back.

Xander – "Holy crap. Someone eats their wheaties."

Faith – "What the hell, Xander?"

Xander, pulling a nail out of his back – "Hey, it's not my fault. That guy is really fricken tough."

Faith – "And you're supernaturally tough. It shouldn't be a contest at all."

The older hunter – "He's just a pussy."

Faith – "Hey! He's not a pussy. Now walk."

She forcibly pushed him up some the stairs.

Back near the entrance of the house, Tara had the younger hunter lying face down with both hands behind his back. To stop further struggling, she was sitting on him too.

Tara – "Xander, you didn't hurt him too badly, did you?"

The older hunter had to laugh – "Him hurt me? Hah."

Xander, holding his hurt back – "I'm getting too old for this for this."

Tara – "I'm not really comfortable holding this man like this. Can't we let them go now?"

Faith, to the older hunter – "As long as someone doesn't get punch happy again."

The older hunter, as Faith let him go – "Huh?"

Tara got off the younger one, who slowly picked himself up and looked obviously confused.

The younger hunter – "Okay. What's going on?"

The older hunter – "I have no freaking idea."

Xander – "Why don't we start with names? I'm Xander. This is Faith. And the bouncy blonde isn't called Lenore. She's called Tara."

The younger hunter – "Weird. She's the spitting image of Lenore."

The older hunter – "Better make up though. More blush."

The younger hunter seemed to consider this and nodded.

Faith – "So who are you two?"

The younger hunter, Sam – "I'm Sam Winchester and this is Dean. We're hunters. So what's your story?"

Xander – "We're hunters too."

Dean, the older hunter, looking skeptical – "Really? I don't mean to poke holes in this story but that girl of yours, I don't think she's human. No girl that big should be that strong."

Faith, as if it was obvious – "I'm a slayer, dill weed."

Dean – "You're obviously new. It's not cool to call yourself a slayer. The word is hunter. And being a hunter doesn't give you super powers."

Faith – "No. I'm a slayer. As in the slayer. As in, yes, it gives me super powers."

Sam, at a loss – "Dean?"

Dean – "Don't look at me. I don't know what she's talking about."

Xander – "Okay. They don't know about slayers. We've stumbled across some amateurs."

Dean, offended – "Hey, watch who you're calling amateurs. You attacked vampires with wooden stakes. Everyone knows those don't kill vampires."

Faith, to Xander – "What was with that, anyway?"

Xander, nudging a decapitated body with his foot – "I don't know. I think these vampires are different somehow."

Sam – "So what about the rest of you?"

Tara – "We're vampires. Uh, a different type of vampire to these."

Dean – "I'd like to point out that there aren't different types of vampires."

Xander cricked his neck, strained a little and then his gameface morphed on..

Dean and Sam stared while Faith laughed.

Faith – "I've never actually seen you do that before. It's kinda hot."

Xander, rolling his eyes – "Of course it is."

Then he shook his face and it fell away, leaving Faith pouting.

Tara – "This Lenore, does she really look just like me?"

Dean shrugged while Sam nodded.

Sam, his brow crinkling – "You even sound like her. She's a vampire too. Obviously not your type but the type we just killed. We left her alone because she stopped hunting humans. She hunts cattle instead."

Tara, to Xander and Faith – "Maybe in this world, I'm called Lenore."

Faith – "Why? I mean, why would you call yourself that?"

Xander – "People often change their names after they're turned."

Faith – "And she's a vampire here too. I guess its fate. How much do you want to bet she's never even met Dawn here? I reckon I've got a shot at this one."

Xander, wincing – "We're not here for a booty call."

Faith – "Says you."

Dean, to Sam – "Is this making any sense to you?"

Sam, shrugging – "Maybe they're from Canada. Wherever they come from, vampires obviously work differently."

Xander – "Which is kind of strange. And you really don't know about slayers? Wait, hold on. This Lenore that looks like Tara is a vampire?"

Sam nodded.

Xander – "And vampires are evil here?"

Both Dean and Sam nodded in a so-so way.

Sam – "It's more like they can't help themselves from killing people."

Xander – "But this Lenore can? In our world, the only way that happens is with magic or they're related to slayers."

Tara – "You think I was turned by a slayer here?"

Xander – "It's possible."

Dean – "What exactly is this slayer thing you keep going on about?"

Xander, to Faith – "You want to take this?"

Faith - "No. You were a watcher. It's your job to explain this stuff."

Xander, with a sigh – "The slayer is a girl gifted with the strength and skills to seek out and destroy the evils of the supernatural. It seems that when they're turned into vampires, they're not quite as evil as they should be. Same goes for those they turn. I don't really know why."

Faith – "Buffy told us before. It's the slayer demon inside us. It kicks the vampire demon in the head until it shuts up."

Dean, not liking the wording – "You're a demon?"

Faith – "Sure. I guess. I never really thought about it."

Xander – "Faith, you're not a demon."

Faith – "I'm not really human anymore. Not that I'm all hung up on that sort of thing. So what about you guys? What's your deal?"

Sam – "We're completely human."

Faith – "I don't think so. You were just throwing Xander around like a rag doll."

Dean – "I'm one hundred percent human. I'm just in peak physical condition."

Faith, not quite buying this – "I don't know. Xander's pretty tough."

Xander – "But I'm not invincible. I wasn't expecting him to be that strong. He just surprised me."

Faith, sizing Dean up – "Fine. But I'm keeping my eye on him."

There was an awkward pause as no one really knew what to say next.

Faith, not noticing the awkwardness – "This Lenore, is she kinky?"

Sam – "What? I have no idea. She seemed pretty level headed"

Xander – "That does sound like Tara."

Faith – "You know what they say. It's always the ones you least suspect."

There was another awkward pause.

Xander decided it was time they got down to business.

Xander – "Hey, did you two know that you've got a dimensional gateway in this town?"

Dean – "Uh. No. Is that bad?"

Xander – "In my experience, yes. It's bad. You might not know what I'm talking about but have you heard about monsters with giant mouths for faces, going around on a spree of genocide and turning other people into more monsters with giant mouths for faces?"

Dean and Sam both slowly shook their heads.

Tara – "They might not have visited here yet."

Xander, stroking his chin – "I guess it's possible. Either way, we need to talk to some demon killing authorities."

Faith – "That's why we're here. I haven't forgotten. So how about it, beefcakes. Who's in charge here?"

Sam – "I don't get what you mean."

Faith – "You know, who runs the show? Like is there a watchers council here? Or maybe you've got those stargate guys?"

Xander – "Faith, that's a secret government experiment. They probably won't know about that."

Dean – "No idea what you're talking about."

Xander – "We're looking for a large group of people that know about the supernatural."

Dean and Sam gave each other looks.

Sam – "There's nothing like that here."

Xander, to Faith and Tara – "I think we should find some other hunters."

Dean – "Seriously, there's nothing like that here. If you did manage to collect a large group of hunters in one place, demons would just kill them. That's why we're always in small groups. That way if one or two of us die, we don't all die."

Faith, sideways to Xander – "Maybe we should talk to these demons. They sound pretty hardcore."

Xander – "That won't be necessary. There's bound to be some group to talk to. We just have to find it. Hell, we can always go to the military if we have to."

Sam – "The military?"

Xander – "Sure. They always have secret projects which deal with this sort of thing. And they've got plenty of weapons."

Faith – "Maybe there are slayers in the world but these two just don't know about them."

Dean – "I think I would've remembered something like that. And we would know about it. We're not just hunters. We're third generation hunters. It's the family business."

Faith – "Actually, let's forget slayers. We should just find alternate me."

Xander – "You might not be a slayer."

Faith – "But I'd at least be a potential slayer. If the watchers council has found me, I'd be with watchers. Either way, it'll be good to know what I'm up to. Tara's a vampire here so maybe we're all mucking around with the supernatural too. You can find the other me, can't you, Tara?"

Tara, walking into another room – "I think so. But I'm not doing it with all these headless bodies around. Ugh."

Sam, following them curiously – "What are you doing?"

Faith – "This might be a bit to spring on you, stud. But we're from another dimension. Funny thing about dimensions, there's alternate versions of us here. It sounds like you've already met Tara's. Now we're going to find mine."

Sam, struggling a little with all this information – "And how are you going do that?"

Tara, unpacking her magic stuff again – "With magic."

Sam – "Wait. She's a vampire and a witch?"

Dean - "Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse."

Tara blinked at them.

Faith – "What's the problem now?"

Dean – "Nothing. It's just witches are gross."

Faith, poking Dean in the chest – "Hey. Tara is not gross."

Tara – "Faith, it's okay. Some witchcraft really is disgusting."

Dean – "And by some, she means all of it. It's all about mixing bodily fluids together."

Tara, frowning – "That's just blood magic. There's other types of magic besides that."

Dean – "Really?"

Tara, nodding – "When I was human, I mostly learnt cleansing magic. No bodily fluids necessary. Just crystals and joss sticks."

Tara held up one of several quartz crystals she was laying down, to show what she meant.

Dean – "Oh. Sorry. I didn't know. Haven't heard of anything like that before."

Tara – "I guess it's an easy mistake to me. Now, Faith. I'm going to have to draw some blood from you. Then I'll dribble it on this world map and we'll see it crawl around."

Faith, with a laugh – "Really? That sounds cool."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later they had found the location of Faith's alternate : Los Angeles.

Faith took this a good sign as it was pretty far from Boston. Sunnydale would've been better but apparently it didn't even exist on this world.

Sam and Dean decided it would be irresponsible to leave them on their own. So they'd drive them there themselves.

Faith, impressed at their car – "Damn. That's your car? It's sweet."

Dean, whispering to Sam - "Go in the back with the girls. Make sure they don't try to garrote me."

Sam - "And if they tried, you really think I could stop them?"

Tara frowning – "We can hear you. Vampires have great hearing."

Faith – "It's true. And we wouldn't garrote you."

Xander, hopefully joking – "Yeah. That'd be a waste of blood."

Dean didn't reply as he unlocked the car and got in. The others got in, with Xander on the front passenger side and Sam, Faith and Tara in the back.

Faith, sitting closer to Sam – "Hey, this car is even nicer on the inside."

Dean looked backward as he reversed and had to force himself to not laugh when he saw Faith snuggling up against Sam. After he pulled out, they started driving proper, on their way to LA.

Faith, now snuggling with Sam in the back – "So, are you and Dean an item?"

Sam - "No! We're brothers."

Faith - "Oh. Sorry."

Dean - "That's okay. We actually get that a lot."

Faith, smirking - "Your loss, my gain."

Dean, frowning - "What?"

Faith - "Hmm? Oh, nothing. So… are either of you seeing anyone?"

In the front seat, Xander winced hard but didn't say anything.

Sam, becoming increasingly uncomfortable by Faith's snuggling – "Uh, there's plenty of room in here. You can spread out if you want."

Faith – "Relax. I've never even bitten a human. But I do think they're lots of fun."

Sam, as Faith's hands snaked around his waist – "Whoa. Uh, your hands are very cold."

Faith – "Don't worry. I'll warm up."

Xander – "Faith. We don't want to alienate these guys."

Faith – "What? It's okay for Tara to snuggle but not me? Am I not snuggle worthy?"

Tara, squinting at Faith – "Didn't you say snuggling was for kids?"

Faith – "I might have changed my mind on that. Oh common. Just look at him. He's gorgeous. Both of them are. Just look at that brood. They've got a touch of Angel to them. Hmm. Better not let Buffy see them or she'll steal them too."

Xander, wincing hard – "We really need to get Faith laid."

Dean – "That's over sharing."

Xander – "Sorry. I've been hanging around vampires too long."

Sam – "I take it this Buffy is another vampire?"

Faith – "Actually, she's a succubus."

Dean's head snapped back at her, trying to tell if she was joking.

Xander – "Not the type that eats souls."

Sam – "What other type is there?"

Xander, not exactly enjoying speaking of this – "The type that lives on sex."

Sam – "Wow. The rules really are different in your world."

Dean, smirking slightly – "I think maybe we should meet this Buffy. Have you got any more friends I should know about?"

Xander, smirking for a different reason – "You want to know about what forces we have? In our dimension, we've got around a thousand and a half vampires on our side. I don't really know how many of those are slayers. But it's still impressive."

Tara – "I still can't believe Buffy managed to keep that from us."

Faith – "Yeah. B usually isn't that sneaky."

Xander – "Considering we'll probably need all those vampires, I'm not going to complain about it just yet."

Tara – "I would've liked it better if I didn't get turned into a vampire though."

Faith – "That turned out fine... Except for Lambie."

Tara, sullen – "Yeah, poor Lambie."

There was some awkward quiet as Tara and Faith got some of their own brood on.

Dean, sensing this - "This trip will take some time. You don't mind if I put some music on, do you?"

Xander, also sensing this – "Please."

Dean put an 8 track tape into his tape deck. The music started with some guitar which fell off to be followed by a classic rock drum beat. Already, it sounded like something from the seventies.

Xander turned to Tara in the back seat and smiled deviously at her. She tilted her head as she tried to figure out what he was smiling at.

As the drums rat-a-tatted a beat she recognized, Tara's mouth fell open, not believing Xander would do what he was going to do.

Tara – "Xander. Don't."

But it was too late.

Xander, singing fast with the music – "I've been driving all night, my hand's wet on the wheel."

The car swerved a little as a guitar belted out some bass. Dean totally wasn't expecting that from Xander.

Xander, getting a raucous laugh out of Faith – "There's a voice in my head that drives my heel."

Faith joined in, showing that she knew the song too – "It's my baby calling. Says I need you here. Its half past four and I'm shifting gear."

Dean and Sam, joining in too – "When she's lonely and the longing gets too much. She sends a cable coming in from above."

Xander gave Tara "come on" gesture with one hand and Tara rolled her eyes then took in a deep breath.

The entire car – "We've got a thing, its called radar love! We've got a wave in the air. Radar love!"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	54. 16c Echolocation

Episode 16, chapter C : Echolocation

Author note : The chapter finishes off the small crossover in the "Supernatural" universe. Hope you enjoy.

O-O-O-O

When they got to LA, they scryed for Faith's alternate and found them within a remarkably secure building. From the outside, it looked like any business high rise with mirror like windows. But before they even walked through the front door, they saw the "reception" inside was high security grade. There were security cameras, reinforced concrete walls and barb wire surrounding the place.

It was a modern day fort.

It didn't seem that safe to play around with so they decided to hang back and watch the place, maybe catch Faith's alternate when they got off work. To pass the time, and keep watch on the building, they were waiting in Sam and Dean's car parked a while off.

Tara tapped her gyroscope like "compass" with a small blob of Faith's blood on the end. It moved a little then corrected itself to point back at the building.

Faith – "This is weird. I'm getting hinky vibes from this."

Xander nodded – "This is a bit hinky. I can't imagine Faith wearing a business suit."

Sam and Dean took a drag from their coffees as they waited for something to happen.

Faith, To Tara – "So you guys used to sing in the mystery machine all the time?"

Tara, smiling – "Until my throat was hoarse."

Faith – "Why'd you stop when I came along? It's fun as hell."

Tara – "If you remember, when we got you, I accidentally removed Xander's be nice spell. It was a vigil, not happy fun time."

Sam, looking up from his laptop – "Be nice spell?"

Xander – "It's a spell that stops me from doing evil things, like beating people up for fun."

Faith – "You've still got that thing working? Explains why Dean could beat you up so easily?"

Xander, with a little hesitation – "I like to think so."

Dean chuckled but decided not to be a sore winner by saying anything.

Sam – "Have you all got a spell like that on you?"

Xander – "More or less. Umm. Tara, I don't suppose you brought blood?"

Tara smirked as she brought a thermos – "You'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on."

Xander, taking the thermos with a smile – "Thanks."

Faith smiled in Tara's direction and the blonde gave her a thermos full of blood too.

Tara – "Make it last."

Sam, reading from his laptop – "According to city records, this building belongs to the Rossum corporation."

Faith – "Oh crap."

Sam – "What?"

Faith – "I just realized I snuggled up against the male version of Willow."

This got Xander laughing hysterically, despite trying to stop himself.

Sam – "What?"

Tara – "Don't mind them. Go on."

Sam, trying to ignore the laughing Xander – "Uhh. The Rossum group are well known in some circles. One website calls them, and I quote, evil."

Faith – "And alternate me works for them?"

Sam – "Looks like."

Faith, shaking her head – "Okay, I like to play at being bad but I'm not really. I'm just having fun with that. I definitely wouldn't work for evil. That's not who I am."

This made Xander's laughter peter out and he felt, not for the first time, that maybe he should say something on this topic. Before he made a decision, he was interrupted and lost that train of thought.

Dean, looking through binoculars – "We've got movement."

From the underground car park, a practically featureless black van drove up on to the street. The driver looked both ways then drove out into the street.

Faith - "Hmm. A black van. That takes me back."

Then they saw another black van ride down the ramp to the underground car park.

Faith tilted her head at Sam– "How evil do you think these guys really are?"

Sam – "I'm not sure they are. It's mostly animal rights groups who don't like them."

Faith, grimacing – "And I know if I'd work for them then. I don't hurt animals. That's sort of sick."

Dean put down his binoculars and turned to the others, hesitating before talking.

Dean – "I know we don't have much to go on but this building feels wrong."

Xander – "The black vans did it for me. The last time I met a group with multiple black vans, they scraped a meat hook along the inside of my rib cage. Not a nice feeling."

Faith – "Who the hell was this?! I'll kick their ass!"

Xander, smiling at Faith being defensive of him – "I'll introduce you to them when we get back."

Sam – "Maybe we should call Ruby."

Dean, irked – "Why?!"

Sam – "I doubt that security will be a problem for her. I don't think our fake FBI badges will get us in there without a warrant."

Dean – "We're not calling Ruby."

Sam – "Then what? I'm out of ideas."

Dean frowned as he was out of ideas before Sam. Then an opportunity presented itself as yet another black van drove up the ramp.

He smiled as he started up his 1967 Chevrolet Impala and pulled out of his parking spot to tail the black van.

Sam, concerned – "Dean."

Dean, slightly mocking – "Sam."

Sam – "Dean, we're wanted by the law. I don't think following what are probably private contractors is a good idea."

Dean – "Relax. Dad taught me how to tail someone when I was twelve."

Xander – "Wow. My dad didn't even teach me how to drive."

Tara, leaning forward in her seat with a smile – "My dad thought driving was a man's job."

Faith to Tara – "And yet again, I want to kill your dad. What an asshole."

Dean, as the black van moved down a one way street – "Hey, what?"

Sam – "Crap. Did they make us?"

Dean, driving past the one way street – "I don't think so. If they did, they'll come right back out of there. Hold on."

Dean turned down a similar side street and parked his car under a tree. They were in a rich part of town, which made them all feel a little out of place.

Dean and Sam got out of car quickly, opened the boot, pulled a tarpaulin out and tossed it over the car, as if to protect it from the weather. Then they waited.

Sam – "Wait for it. Wait for it. Waiiiit…. Huh. Maybe we weren't made."

Dean – "Told you."

Xander, from under the tarpaulin – "Great. Now let's see what they're doing."

He lifted the tarpaulin and got out, followed by Faith and Tara. Dean locked the car and let the tarpaulin drop as the others walked off towards where they last saw the black van.

Dean looked pensive about where he was parked but managed to pull himself away.

Xander, giving Dean his binoculars as he caught up – "Here. You'll need these more than me."

It took them a few minutes to find the black van again. It was parked outside a small mansion. They couldn't get a good look without being absurdly obvious. The problem with the rich part of town is its sort of difficult finding great places to sneak up on people in broad daylight.

Faith, hiding behind the corner – "Okay. Now what?"

Xander, listening for something– "Ssh."

Xander – "Over the road, quickly. That place. Jump over the fence."

Faith jumped over the fence while Tara and Xander stopped on top, to give Sam and Dean a hand respectively. Then they all dropped down to the other side.

Dean, to Xander – "Thanks for the help. But we're sort of trespassing."

Xander – "Vampires have very good hearing. I could tell there's no one home here. Come on."

Xander and Faith snuck over to some thick trees and the other three followed them. From the tree line, they had a good view of both the black van and the mansion it was parked in front of.

Dean, looking through his binoculars – "I gotta say. You guys might be useful to keep around."

At the front of the mansion, Dean spied an older man surrounded by body guards, obviously the head of the household. It seemed they were meeting with a much younger girl wearing a frilly pink and purple dress. In fact, the girl seemed so bright and cheerful that it was sort of creepy in itself.

Dean – "Okay. I'm confused."

Faith - "Maybe they're high class whores. Ooh. Maybe I'm a high class whore."

Xander – "Faith, that's not a good thing."

Faith, as if challenging him to disagree – "But it is in character."

Sam, with wide eyed recognition as he put two and two together– "I think I know what's going on. It's the Dollhouse."

Dean – "The dollhouse isn't real. It's like Bigfoot."

Sam – "I'm pretty sure Bigfoot is really. Remember, we killed him."

Tara, horrified – "You killed big foot? You monsters! He really just wants to be left alone."

Dean – "It wasn't really Bigfoot. It was a wendigo."

Faith, to Tara – "I missed out on the Jackalope and now you're telling me you saw Big Foot too?"

Xander – "There was really nothing to see. He's just a big furry guy."

Faith, disgruntled – "You guys have all the fun."

Dean, trying to ignore their chatter – "The Dollhouse is an urban myth."

Sam – "Dean. We kill urban myths full time."

Dean – "But not that type of urban myth. That's… sci fi."

Xander – "For those of us who don't come from this dimension. What's the dollhouse?"

Dean – "It's this place they have robot people they can program to do different things."

Xander – "Like sexbots?"

Sam – "They're supposed to be actual people. They're just brainwashed."

Dean – "But this is all academic as there's no such thing as the dollhouse."

Xander – "Maybe we should interrogate that guy, just to make sure."

They looked across to the driveway, where one of the "body guards" was returning back to the van while the others went inside.

Xander – "How much do you want to bet that guy could tell us everything we want to know?"

Dean – "I hate to be the voice of reason but what if you're wrong? What if there's no dollhouse. Are you going to beat information out of an innocent?"

This made both Sam and Xander lose their eagerness.

Tara – "It's a pity Dawn isn't here. She could just hypnotize him."

Faith – "Well, she's not here. Wait, can't you do that?"

Tara – "No."

Faith – "Come on. I know you've been practicing with Dawn."

Tara, not proudly – "I can barely do it at all."

Faith – "You can barely do it to Dawn but that guy won't even know what you're doing. He'll be defenseless."

Dean - "Uninformed here."

Faith - "Tara could hypnotize him with her eyes."

Tara – "I can't. When I practice with Dawn, I can't even do without turning my game face on. Besides, we're not supposed to go around freaking people out with the supernatural."

Sam – "I've got an idea."

Xander – "Okay. We're listening."

Sam – "If you don't want him to knowing about the supernatural then all we need to do is give him some drugs that will make him hallucinate."

Faith - "But we don't have drugs like that."

Tara – "At least, not on us."

Sam – "Tara, I'll just do something to you. It won't hurt. Just trust me."

Tara tried not to look too scared as Sam covered her eyes with one hand. Then he pulled out a knife from somewhere and gently pressed the sharp point into her arm, just enough for her to feel the point.

Sam, sounding a bit silly – "I'm injecting you with something that will make you tell the truth but will also make you see vampires."

He removed his hand from her eyes and she looked down to her arm where she saw the knife. Sam put it away while Tara thought about this.

Tara – "Oh. That's smart."

O-O-O-O

Every brainwashed doll in the dollhouse has a handler. They take them to engagements and take them back to the dollhouse afterwards for more brainwashing fun.

This particular handler was sipping coffee while he listened to the audio bug in his particular Doll's skull.

She was doing something very stimulating to her client right now and it was making him smile as he tried to picture it.

Then the backdoors to the van swung open and Faith pounced in, easily tackling the unprepared handler to the ground and slipping a bag over his head.

Xander and Tara jumped in too, closing the doors behind them.

The handler grunted as he struggled but couldn't get free. Faith took the gun from his shoulder holster while Xander stole the tiny gun from his ankle holster. He held the dainty gun with two fingers then threw it aside, already having lost interest in it.

Faith – "Okay. Stick him with the junk. In the butt."

Xander – "I'm not really comfortable with that."

Faith grabbed the knife from Xander and poked the handler in a butt cheek with it.

This got a muffled scream from the handler.

Faith, with a wink to the others – "Stop squirming. You don't want the needle to break, do you? It's in your butt!"

Xander, taking the knife from Faith – "Okay. That's enough. Lets him up now."

Xander then took out some rope from somewhere and proceeded to tie the handler up. By the look of it, he'd had a lot of practice.

Xander, as he was tying the handler up – "We just injected you with a truth serum. You might notice a few side effects, such as seeing things that aren't there. Just ignore them. They don't exist."

Then they took the bag off the handlers head. The first thing he did was take in a deep breath, now that he could breathe properly.

Then he spotted Faith and very obvious terror over took him.

Handler, literally peeing himself - "I-I-I've got a family. Please don't kill me."

Faith, trying not to laugh – "Wow. I think he knows me."

Xander – "Easy. We're just going to ask a few questions. How do you know my girl here?"

The handler, as if it's obvious – "She's Echo."

Faith frowning – "Wait. Isn't that the type of demon I turned into in that other universe?"

If anything, Faith saying that made the handler even more scared.

Xander – "Why are you so fricken scared of her?"

The handler – "She's glitching! It's… wait, what's going on here?"

Xander lightly jabbed the handler in the face, enough to daze him a little.

Xander – "We're asking the questions here. Tell us everything you know about her."

The handler – "You're just going to kill me anyway. Go fuck yourself."

Xander – "You're up, Tara."

Tara didn't look to confident as she crouched before the handler and held his head in her hands. She strained a little and her gameface formed mere centimeters from the handlers own face.

His eyes widened crazily wide, practically inhaling Tara into them.

Tara, with a toothy grin – "I'm in."

Faith – "Wow. That's hot."

Tara, struggling to keep control – "Really not the time, Faith."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later and the three vampires made their way back to the Chevrolet Impala.

Tara, to Sam – "You were right. The Dollhouse exists. They brainwash people there to become playthings for the rich and powerful."

Xander – "Sounds evil enough for me."

Dean frowned while Sam laughed at slugged him in the arm.

Sam – "Told you."

Dean, rubbing him arm – "Yeah yeah. Hey, umm, you didn't kill that guy, did you?"

Xander – "Not that he didn't deserve it but no. We didn't. After all, he has a family."

Faith – "We just left him laying a pool of his own urine. It was awesome."

Xander, to the brothers – "You don't want to know. Let's just move on."

Sam, as Dean took the tarpaulin off his car - "Now we know it really is the dollhouse. So what now? We can't just walk in there and free the dolls. They're bound to have some tough security."

Xander held up a security card – "This should help."

Faith – "I dunno. I think we should get more help with this. We don't know what they've got in there. I'd really like Buffy's help on this. Maybe get the other Xander. And Oberon would sure be handy. She could probably tear that whole building down by herself."

Xander – "We can't. They're running out of mojo back home, remember? We need to make it stretch out. Besides, the security will just be human. Uh, no offense guys."

Sam – "None taken."

Xander – "What I mean is, they won't be ready for three vampires."

Sam – "You don't have to explain."

Xander, still explaining – "They'll just have guns and those usually don't kill vampires."

Faith – "But Xander, you shoot vampires with guns all the time."

Xander – "That's just because I like hurting them. They're not proper vampire slaying tools."

Faith, getting an idea – "I've got it. Why don't we give alternate me vampire powers?"

Xander – "Why? I mean how?"

Faith – "With magic. We can do that, right. Like, human Xander got vampire strength without actually being a vampire. That was just because there was a vampire version of Xander in the same dimension. So Tara could probably make it so human me has vampire strength too."

Xander – "That wouldn't help us much. It'd probably just traumatize the poor girl."

Faith – "But she could help us fight our way out."

Tara - "That's really not a good idea. If we just pump her full of vampire magic, she'll feel it and it won't feel good. It'll probably turn her homicidal."

Faith – "That's fine. I want her angry.

Tara – "It might kill her too. She might not be a slayer."

Faith – "It won't. I'm tough."

Tara, sternly – "No! We've been playing around with magic far too much. It's not a toy."

Faith – "Come on, Tara. This will help us out."

Tara – "I think this might just be your natural instinct to turn humans into vampires. Even if it's not, I'm not doing it. I'm putting my foot down."

Faith – "Fine. But if she gets killed, I'm holding you personally responsible."

Tara – "Does anyone have a plan that doesn't involve killing the person we want to save?"

Xander – "I've got one forming. We should be able to do it without fangs too. We don't want them knowing that we're vampires. But we will need some suits."

Sam – "You can borrow ours."

O-O-O-O

Xander and Tara were wearing the brother's "FBI" suits for when they impersonate FBI agents.

Xander looked fine but Tara's suit didn't suit her at all. Her curves combined with the suit made her look twice the size she actually was. It really needed refitting but they didn't really have time.

Both of them were walking down the ramp into the dollhouse's underground car park.

Faith, wearing a cheerleader outfit and a frown – "I bet you're loving this, Xander."

Xander, smiling – "I won't lie. This is pretty funny."

Behind them, a van rolled down the ramp and parked.

Xander, seeing the van – "This will be easier than I thought."

Two people came out of the van. One was obviously a handler by the suit they were wearing while the other was obviously a doll wearing a very fake police uniform. The handler was tall, forty-something and white while the doll was equally tall, twenty-something, Hispanic and way hotter than her handler.

Xander and Tara escorted Faith to the elevator before the real handler and doll duo. Xander tapped the elevator button and the elevator doors opened almost instantly. The Scoobies walked in with the other two coming in after. The handler pushed a button which would take them to where Xander hoped they wanted to go.

When the elevator started downwards, the doll looked Faith up and down with contempt. As she did that, the handler looked Xander and Tara over.

Xander, as if explaining his presence - "We're new."

The handler – "Taking over for Langton? Please don't tell me his charge got him shot again."

Faith raised an eyebrow at the Handler, who had no problem at all ignoring her.

Xander, checking his watch – "No idea."

Tara – "How much time do we have left?"

Xander - "Plenty. We'll probably run out of blood before we run out of time."

The handler – "What?"

Xander, not acting surprised by this at all – "What?"

The handler – "Did you just say something about running out of blood?"

Xander – "Why would I say that? Blood? No one said anything about blood."

The Doll – "I'm pretty sure you said blood."

Faith – "Why would he say blood? You two are crazy."

Xander, finding this funny – "Yeah. Blood? That doesn't make any sense at all."

The elevator doors opened and they all piled out. Tara poked a disapproving knuckle in Xander's ribs. But it didn't seem to stifle his smile too much.

Faith, smiling – "At least he's getting his sense of humor back."

The three Scoobies followed the handler along some rather nondescript white corridors while his doll mumbled to herself about needing a better job. They followed them through a door and walked out into a large spacious, well groomed area full of well groomed individuals who all looked very fit and also very peaceful. There were staircases and corridors branching off from that main room. It was full of potential paths and possible places for security to spring out from.

Xander – "For an evil sanctum sanctorum, this place is swank. You two follow the handler. I'm going to find the alternate."

Tara nodded and they went back to following the handler while Xander tried his best to be casual as he strode off, as if he had a purpose.

He reminded himself that he did have a purpose, so it wasn't a complete lie.

Tara watched him go as she walked towards some showers where the handler was taking his doll. Tara stopped Faith as she saw another handler and doll couple leaving the showers. The doll was wearing some casual pajamas but was a lot more chatty than the rest of the dolls doing yoga.

Tara, to Faith – "How would you like to figure this place out?"

Faith – "Sure."

Tara followed this new handler as he walked up some stairs with his charge. The handler took his charge through a cozy office with quite a lot of computer equipment and through some nicely frosted glass doors.

Faith frowned when she saw an overly high tech looking chair. Before they got too good a look at it, the doors were closed from the inside and locked as the doll laid down into the chair.

Faith – "Brainwashing chair?"

Tara – "I think so."

Electric purple lights streaked across the frosted glass as who knows what happened on the other side.

O-O-O-O

Meanwhile, Xander found his way to the medical bay where Faith's alternate, Echo, was being examined by a doctor that he recognized. They looked just like Fred.

Doctor Claire Saunders, Fred's alternate, found that she couldn't remember anyone working there with an eye patch. Her puzzlement became tinted with a slight bit of panic as he closed the door behind him for some privacy.

Dr Saunders – "Excuse me. Can I help you?"

Xander – "Yes. You can. I'm sorry about this but I want both of you to be completely quiet and do exactly as I say. I promise that I don't want to hurt you. In fact, that's the last thing I want."

Then Xander slowly pulled out his not-so-trusty side arm and a small walky-talky, bringing an almost inaudible gasp from the doctor. Echo seemed completely oblivious to any danger.

Xander, to the doctor again – "I really am sorry about this. But please, do everything I say. We'll be taking both of you out of here. No one needs to get hurt."

Xander, talking into a small walky talky – "I found them. I'm going to need a small distraction."

O-O-O-O

The frosted doors opened up. The doll that just went in was walking back out a lot less talkative and had a sublimely docile face on. Her handler walked through too, followed by a cheerful, almost bubbly guy who neither Faith nor Tara could figure out.

Is this the guy who reprograms people to other people's playthings or is there someone else in that room?

Cheerful guy, to Tara – "Oh, hi. A new face. I'm Topher. Pleased to meet you."

Tara, not so pleased – "Hi."

Faith – "Hi."

Topher looked Faith over and frowned.

Topher – "Echo just got back. Shouldn't she get some rest before we send her out again?"

A walky talky in Tara's pocket - "I found them. I'm going to need a small distraction."

Both girls looked down at the walky-talky then back up at Topher with wide grins while Topher stopped smiling and started looking concerned.

Tara – "So, let me get this straight. You're the guy who reprograms the dolls?"

Topher – "We're supposed to call them actives and…why do I have this sinking feeling?"

Faith gave him a grin that wasn't disarming at all.

Faith, still grinning - "Absolutely no idea."

O-O-O-O

From the floor below, Xander was peeking through a door that he had opened a gnats. It usually took Faith a lot less time to make a distraction. She normally couldn't help it.

That's when he saw a man thrown over a second floor balcony and lands on a table people were eating at. The table collapsed and the man groaned weakly in pain.

Faith, yelling from above – "I told you I could hit it!"

Dolls and security guards all seemed surprised by this and no one really did anything at first. They seemed to trying to figure out what exactly was going on as it wasn't immediately obvious to them.

Then some second floor windows broke through as a monitor was thrown through them, causing glass to rain down upon the dystopian paradise below.

Faith – "WHOOHOO!!"

That did it. Now security was moving, although some of them were just directing the dolls away from the broken glass.

Faith, from the chair room – "FIGHT THE POWER! Ugh! Man, this chair is really nailed down, isn't it?"

Xander could hear her strain and forcibly tear the chair out from the floor with individual screws pinging out with her exertions. Then Faith heaved the chair outside too. It was so heavy that is embedded itself through the floorboards.

Some security guard moving dolls away – "Someone stop her!"

A few of the guards ran up the stairs, pistols ready. They were pushed off the stairs as a desk flew down them and knocked them down like fleshy bowling pins.

At that, the security guards forgot about the dolls and took a much more indirect route to that office. Xander watched as they left the main room, running for stairs somewhere else.

Xander, to the two alternates – "Okay, let's go. Move it."

He waved his gun for extra incentive and the doctor reluctantly walked in front of him, out into the main room. Surprising to her, no one was really noticing them.

They passed by one of the half conscious guards that was hit by the desk and they groaned in pain.

Echo – "That man hurts."

Doctor – "Yes. Yes he does. But he will be okay."

Xander – "Keep moving."

They made it to the security door they had originally entered through with and Xander opened it with the security guard he stole off that handler that one time.

Behind him, a security guard came out of nowhere and looked at Xander a little confused.

But before he could do much, Tara sped forwards and kicked him in the shoulder hard. The man was violently spun away and bounced off a wall, leaving him dazed and in pain while Tara's pants ripped in a surprisingly loud manner.

Faith stopped all pretense of readiness as she was too busy laughing.

Even Xander laughed but he quickly shut it down and went back to business.

Xander – "Faith. Come on. We need to go before they get organized."

A voice from somewhere – "They're going for the lifts!"

Xander, holding the security door open – "Damnit! MOVE!"

The five of them ran through, the doctor and Echo in front, Xander close behind.

Two guards turned around a corner and hesitated before aiming at the doctor and Echo. Xander didn't hesitate as he barged into them, bouncing them off the wall behind them. They went down limp. He probably didn't kill them but probably didn't care. They were down and that was good enough.

It was a quick run to the elevator which was already open. They ran into it and Faith pushed the button for the basement car park.

Echo, becoming a bit worried – "What's going on?"

Doctor – "It'll be okay."

Faith, trying to be comforting – "Yeah, it'll be okay. Uh, Xander, is that who I think it is?"

Xander – "I think it might be, yeah."

Tara, frowning – "Who?"

Xander – "Fred."

Tara tilted her head and then nodded – "Oh. I see it now."

Faith, leaning against the wall of the elevator – "You're right, Xander. We didn't need help. That was way too easy."

Then the lift stopped but the doors didn't open. They heard the engines for the lift whirring down slowly.

Xander – "Good one, Faith."

Faith – "What? What did I do?"

Xander – "You jinxed us by saying it was way too easy."

Doctor Saunders – "I'm sorry. You didn't stand a chance. You should just surrender now. We don't need more people getting hurt."

Xander, smirking – "Give up? That's a coward's path. No, we have only just begun to fight. Your turn, Tara."

Tara dug a knife she got somewhere into the lift control panel and pried it open a little. Then she pried it open more with her hands. Faith gave her a hand and the control panel popped open, exposing a mass of wires for something that really should be a lot less complicated.

Then Tara gently cut the palm of her hand with the knife, making a line of red along it. She opened and closed her hands a few times to get some blood to pump out then placed her palm on the exposed electronics.

Tara – "I hope this works."

Xander – "Me too."

Doctor Saunders, not liking where this is going – "What do you think you're doing?"

Xander – "Ssh. We're magicians."

Tara closed her eyes and concentrated.

Tara, growling slightly as she spoke - "Deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

The elevator started moving again, quietly surprising the doctor. When they reached ground floor, Tara shook herself as if to wake herself up. When the doors opened, they weren't greeted by any armed thugs.

In fact, it was surprisingly quiet.

Xander – "Good job, Tara."

Doctor Saunders – "How did you do that? I don't understand."

Xander – "You will."

Then he tried to casually smash a window and surprised himself when it didn't work

Xander, rubbing his hurt hand – "Ow! What the hell? Bullet proof glass?"

Faith punched it in and broke it with ease.

Faith – "Baby."

Xander, sounding a little pained – "I softened it up for you."

He reached in, unlocked the van, got inside, unlocked the side door and slid it open.

Doctor Saunders, talking to herself as Tara gently directed her inside the van – "I must be going insane. It's the stress."

Xander, barking like a surgeon – "Knife"

Faith, barking similarly as she handed him her knife – "Knife."

He stabbed the underside of the steering wheel in the plastic parts, jigged the knife a little then twisted it. Then he got ignition.

Faith – "You really have to tell me how you do that."

They pulled out of the parking space then speed up the ramp, into the street and flowed into traffic with no obvious resistance.

But a silver skinned helicopter watched them from above and they heard it as it dangerously flew between buildings and descended down upon their van.

The van sped forwards, hoping to outrun the helicopter but it was a futile effort. In fact, the guy with the machinegun leaning out the side of the helicopter didn't want to come straight down on them. He wanted the right angle.

Cars saw or heard the suicidal low flying helicopter and realized that many realized that the black van was its target. They moved aside for it as if it was an ambulance, fearful of whatever it was carrying.

The machinegun wielding guy yelled something to the pilot and the helicopter leveled off as the van skidded around a corner.

The weapon spat out a controlled burst and the bullets thudded into the back of the van, hitting a wheel.

As the van stopped turning, the back wheel hit the ground with a thud and driving control was lost as the van tipped onto its side and slid along the road.

When it stopped, no one ran from it. It seemed dead and the helicopter flew away.

Within a few minutes, other black vans came along and surrounded their traitorous brother. Nondescript flak jacket wearing men poured out of their vans in a hurry with guns ready to shoot anything and everything.

Then they inched forward very slowly as none of them really wanted to be the one who took the first real move and put themselves in danger.

Xander, inside the van – "History just keeps on repeating itself."

The back doors flew open and considering the tension, it's surprisingly that no one fired off a few shots.

Xander rolled out of van and pounced into the air with speed and height that a human couldn't match. It caught the gunmen by surprise and when they finally did fire, most of their bullets went wide. Those that did hit Xander didn't seem to slow him down much.

He body slammed two of them, knocking them to the ground. Then went about clobbering the others while weaving with erratic movements.

He was amongst them, causing them to think twice about friendly fire. Especially since he was moving all over the place in a way that no one really should.

One of the soldiers - "What is this guy on!?"

One of the soldiers had the bright idea to just jump on Xander, which at least slowed him down a little. He might be strong and he might be fast but it seemed he couldn't perform some basic judo to save his life.

Another soldier did the same. Then another. Then more.

Then it became a dogpile with almost all of them jumping on.

Some of them moved off to "secure" the van.

One of the soldiers on the pile – "Have you got him!?"

Another soldier on the bottom of the pile – "Get off me!"

The first soldier politely obeyed and slowly the other soldiers got off too, half expecting an overdosed drug addict to be lying on the bottom.

What they found surprised them.

They found nothing there.

A soldier rubbing his helmet against his head - "Uhhhh. Where did he go?"

Another soldier, looking around - "Did he crawl out?"

Yet another soldier – "He must've. Spread out and find him!"

One of the soldiers that "secured" the van ran up to them.

Soldier from van – "There's no one in the van."

An obviously angry soldier – "WHAT?! What do you mean there's no one in the van?!"

Soldier from van – "Exactly what I mean. There's no one in the van."

O-O-O-O

Back in the vampverse.

Xander couldn't stop laughing as he lay down on a large stone table in the "portal room"

Xander – "Best exit ever. They're gonna be scratching their heads over that for the rest of their fricken lives!"

O-O-O-O

What no one at the dollhouse seemed to notice was that the black van Xander was driving had traded paint with a1967 Chevrolet Impala which drove alongside and matched speed as a daring "in-transit" exchange of hostages took place. Faith and Tara went along for the ride, mostly because they weren't that keen on getting shot at.

Faith, exuberant in the backseat – "Thanks a lot, guys. You've got yourselves some allies for life now."

Sam, trying to calm her down as he was also in the back seat – "It's not a problem. You saved us from doing it. Now if you can stop jumping around, I'll check your twin for bugs. They're supposed to have them so their handlers can keep track of them"

Echo, her perfect hair frazzled by wind – "What's going on?"

Doctor Saunders – "I'd like to know that too."

Dean, to Tara who was in the front with him – "Who's the white coat?"

Tara – "They're an alternate of someone we know."

Dean – "Another vampire?"

Tara - "Actually, no. This time it's a god."

Dean – "A god? Like a trickster?"

Faith frowned – "I don't know. I haven't seen her pull any pranks."

Tara snorted – "Definitely the wrong type of god."

Doctor Saunders – "You've drugged me with something, haven't you?"

Sam – "Perhaps it's best you believe that for the moment."

O-O-O-O

Topher, the computer specialist, was holding an icepack to his ribs while the male blond, stern head of security and his rather sexy but icy cold boss stood behind him.

Topher – "I think I should be in hospital. I might be bleeding internally."

Dewitt, his aforementioned sexy boss lady – "Topher. Focus. We need to know what happened."

Topher tapped some keys and video snapshots of Xander, Tara and Faith popped up on the display in front of him.

Topher – "I don't know what else to tell you. The Echo lookalike, our facial recognition software actually thinks that's Echo. I couldn't tell the difference at first either. She's just a bit pudgier. Maybe younger too. It's still a bit of a blur."

The head of security – "Surgical manipulation to spec. It's not the first time it's been done. What about the other two?"

Topher – "Well, the blonde is supposed to be dead while the guy, oh, you're going to love this. The guy is recognized as a pastry chef from a fancy New York restaurant. His specialty is cake. He probably makes a killer chocolate mousse too. I'm no expert but I doubt we're looking for someone who spends their time baking cakes."

The head of security – "More surgery? Strange."

Topher – "After they pulled a Houdini, we pulled up Echo's systems. We've got everything. Her location, her heart rate, her mental state."

Topher clicked his mouse and the screen became filled with a large graphical representation of a brain.

Dewitt – "How is she?"

Topher – "She's freaking a little but seems to be okay. It doesn't look like she's been hurt yet."

Then the blue brain on the screen went black and only a stylized white outline of the brain remained.

Topher – "Oh no. Oh crap!"

He spurred into computer action, clicking his mouse and flicking through different windows.

Topher - "No no no no no NO!"

Dewitt, looking a touch sad – "She's dead."

Topher, frustrated – "No. She's not dead. We just lost her signal. How did they do that? We've got the worlds most sophisticated electronics in her brain. Who the hell are we dealing with here?!"

O-O-O-O

Back in the Chevrolet Impala, Sam was busy wrapping Echo up in tinfoil.

Dean – "Oh great. We've gone there."

Sam – "If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears, Dean."

Doctor Saunders – "Who are you people?"

Faith, laughing – "I have no idea where to begin. How about you lot?"

Dean, completely agreeing – "No idea at all."

Tara, with some slight worry – "What are we going to do with them?"

Sam – "First order of business is to remove these bugs."

Dean, thinking something up hilarious – "Then we'll catapult them onto the white house roof."

Sam – "Why?"

Dean – "Washington's just a small detour on our way to Bobby's."

Sam – "No it's not."

Dean – "Come on. Wouldn't you love to see the look on their face when they think their doll is in the white house? You can't buy fun like that."

Doctor – "I really think you're over your heads here."

Faith, smirking – "Really? Hey guys, you don't need us anymore, do you? We should probably get back."

Sam, giving her a fake business card – "Sure. I think we're set. Here's our number."

Faith – "Cool. You look after alternate me, kay? If you don't, I'll kick your ass."

Sam – "She'll be safe. Trust me."

Faith – "Good. Come on, Tara, let's go."

Both vampires took out metal flasks and took a large swig while Doctor Saunders just kept frowning.

Tara – "You should hear from us soon."

Dean, managing a grin – "We'll be waiting."

Then the vampires started blurring and then blinked and disappeared.

Doctor Saunders – "No, really. What is going on?"

Sam – "I thought they were nice."

Dean – "Yeah. For people who drink blood they were downright wholesome."

O-O-O-O

Xander was resting on a bed in the underground city's hospital. The room he was in was rectangular, small, didn't have any windows and the door in was solid cast iron. There weren't any other patients in there with him either.

It felt to him more like a prison cell than part of a hospital ward.

The door opened and much to his surprise, it wasn't nurses but Faith and Tara.

Faith, as Xander sat up – "Whoa, don't get up on account of us. You've been shot."

Xander, smiling – "I don't really need to be lying in this hospital bed. I wasn't shot anywhere important. The nurses just won't let me leave."

Faith, stern but with a smile - "And you won't until you rest up. Aint that right, Tara?"

Tara nodded with a smile, finding Faith being protective very endearing.

Xander – "So how did it work out? I hope I didn't miss anything important."

Tara – "I think it turned out okay. We'll call back later. But it's not a priority. We really do need to check the other worlds first."

Faith – "But Echo, that's what they call the other me, she safe now thanks to you. Way to take one for the team, man."

Xander – "It's the least I can do."

Faith - "Just so you know, this counts as a case of saving my life. Thanks."

Xander – "Uh, you're welcome."

Faith, with a gentle kiss on his cheek and a smirk - "Get better, lover boy. I want to get you back in debt soon."

Xander, unable to not smile – "Faith, you do wonders for an old guy's confidence."

Tara, frowning – "Do I want to know?"

Xander – "Do you ever?"

Tara – "No, not really."

Faith - "You do owe me a knife though. You never gave me it back."

Xander – "Oh. Right. Sorry. I'll find you another."

Faith – "You better. I really liked that knife. You better get me a good one."

Tara, to Faith – "We should give him some time to rest."

Xander, lying back down – "Yeah. It's been a full day. You two should get some sleep too."

Tara – "Goodnight."

Faith – "Sya later alligator."

Xander – "Night night."

The two girls closed the door behind them and left him alone to contemplate the ceiling in private.

Xander let himself genuinely smile.

Xander, talking to himself – "Best exit ever."

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	55. 17a Tooth and claw

Episode 17, chapter A : Tooth and claw

O-O-O-O

In the underground city, the portal room was under siege from the outside. It was surrounded by vampires all led by Giana.

Giana was an ancient vampire trapped in the body of a ten year old girl. Despite her unfortunate form, she had a lot going for her. She had Oberon obediently standing beside her as a bodyguard and she had Buffy powerless and on her knees in front of her.

Giana – "Buffy, be a good girl and tell them to surrender. I'm going to get in eventually and when I do, people will die. I might not care if they die but I don't care for killing them either. They're just not important to me at all. I only want inside."

Buffy, looking surprisingly pale but still defiant - "Go bite a bible. I know why you want in there. For the nukes."

Giana – "But don't you see. My plan is perfect. We have thirteen worlds to clear and we have thirteen nukes. All we need to do is drop a nuke on each world to set off mutually assured destruction and they'll rid themselves of this face eater threat you're so worried about."

Buffy – "Even if that worked you'll be killing tens of billions of lives."

Giana – "And yet I don't seem to care. Now are you going to help me?"

Buffy – "No."

Giana – "That's too bad. I wish there was some other way. Those blast doors don't come cheap. Obie. Be a dear and open those big doors for us."

Oberon wordlessly squinted and the two giant blast doors creaked open despite their heavy locking mechanisms complaining loudly. Once the doors were unlocked, they started rumbled open with ease.

Giana – "Good job."

Oberon, frowning – "That wasn't me."

Vampires waited to ambush anyone stupid enough to leave the safety of the portal room as the doors continued opening.

They got their wish but no one seemed especially eager to attack just yet. Mostly, they were just confused as it was just Willow, Buffy's sex toy of the month.

Willow gasped and clutched at her throat as Oberon telekinetically lifted her off the ground by the neck.

Willow, with a strangled voice – "Giana! Are you that scared of me that you have to hide behind Oberon?"

Giana laughed – "Me?! Scared of you? Oberon, drop her."

Willow dropped to her feet as Oberon released her. Then she started stomping forwards, straight towards Giana. But she was stopped by some slayers blocking her way. Instead of fighting, she crossed her arms and wore a displeased expression.

Willow – "Giana, this has gone on long enough."

Giana – "So? What are you going to do about it?"

Willow – "Have you read Lambronazi's prophecies? I'm the tempest. You can't beat me."

Giana laughed – "You really believe that prophecy? Lambronazi was insane."

Willow – "That doesn't mean she's wrong. Besides, someone has to stop you. It might as well be me."

Buffy, really not liking where this is going – "Willow, don't do this. You don't stand a chance."

Giana – "Buffy's right. You really don't."

Willow – "Giana, I formally challenge you to a duel. If you win, everyone in the portal room will surrender and your soldiers will be released unharmed. If I win, I take everything."

Giana – "Rules?"

Willow – "None."

Giana – "You're so going to regret saying that. Now I'm going to make you my bitch."

Willow – "Normally I'd say it's the other way around but you're a little girl. It wouldn't be right at all."

Giana, to those around her – "Make some room!"

Her soldiers separated out in front of her and before Willow was ready Giana blurred forwards and punched her in the head.

That tumbled Willow backwards, dazed and disorientated. As she got to her feet, another blur sped by and her legs were swept out from under her. With Willow still on the ground, another blur came her way and this time she blocked as she was given a kick so hard that it made her barrel roll off the ground.

Willow made a strange sort of whimper-moan as she struggled to her feet once more while Giana grinned widely and showed a mouthful of sharpened metallic teeth.

Giana, finding all this action funny – "People really should stop underestimating me."

O-O-O-O

Twelve hours earlier.

Underground city, mess hall.

The Buffy from the future felt a twinge of pride as she looked around the "open air" mess hall. It was full of people, most of them undead girls. Somehow her younger looking but actually much older lookalike had managed to organize this whole set up.

Some had even called her Queen before figuring out they were talking to the wrong Buffy. This particular Buffy hoped that was a joke. Actually having the title of Queen just felt wrong.

Most of the people in the room still looked awfully skinny. It was the cost of sleeping through the ages. But they were looking less and less skeletal every day. Taut, toned muscle grew back on with punishing hand to hand training and the occasional bit of yoga.

All in all, they were getting better every day.

She had gotten a few new friends too. It seemed that almost everyone down here has slept with Buffy and had fond memories of the experience.

One such person was Heidi, the succubus slayer from world war two era Germany, who was sitting next to Buffy and eating some cheesecake.

Buffy still couldn't stomach normal food, which was irritating her to no end.

But Heidi had been nothing but helpful. In fact, Heidi had attached herself to Buffy as part of a buddy system which no one else seemed to know about. Buffy knew she was lying but found it cute.

Now if only she would stop flaunting her cheese cake.

Heidi saw Buffy glaring and looked up from the cheese cake with a look of confused innocence.

Buffy – "Nothing. I'm just glaring at your cheese cake."

Heidi – "Don't worry. You'll get normal taste back as you grow older."

Willow from the future – "It's the same for vampires too, Buffy. I know, it sucks."

Dawn from the future, frowning – "Huh? I had some cheesecake before. It was nice."

Buddy – "That's just like Phoenix. He eats all sort of stuff too."

Across the table were a few of the survivors from the gender bender dimension, Buddy, Fox, Lara and Lexx.

Willow – "Seriously? I hadn't noticed."

Heidi – "Not all undead are created equal. Little quirks here and there are pretty common."

Willow – "Like what? Anything I should be warned about?"

Heidi and the gender bender vampires thought about this for a while.

Buddy – "There's wandering hands."

Buffy – "What's that?"

Fox – "Buffy. Put your arms on Lexx's sides then look her in the eyes."

Buffy – "Huh?"

Fox – "Just do it."

Heidi, with a sigh – "She won't work."

Fox – "Why not?"

Heidi – "I already checked. She doesn't have it."

Fox, with a frown – "Oh."

Buddy – "Then I guess we'll see Willow try it. Go on, Willow."

Fox, as Willow stood up and sat down next to Lexx – "Uhh, I'm not sure I want to see this."

Willow – "So, what do I do?"

Buddy – "Just put your arms on her hips then look her in the eyes."

Willow carefully placing her hands on Lexx's sides then looked her in the eyes. Willow looked sort of bored as she leant in and one hand curved around to cup Lexx's ass while another snaked up to get fondle her breasts. Then Willow looked down at the position of one hand and her eyes shot wide open.

Willow, snapping her hands back – "AHH! What?!"

Most of the table laughed while Buffy, Willow and Dawn had varying mixes of confusion and disgust.

Heidi – "That's always funny."

Willow, distraught – "W-what!? I didn't do that! How did that happen?"

Dawn – "Willow!"

Willow, looking at her hands – "It wasn't me!"

Lara – "We're being a bit cruel here."

Buddy – "You're right. You're absolutely right. I'm sorry."

Willow – "I swear I didn't do that."

Lara – "That's what wandering hands are. I'm told that it's involuntary."

That last part was directed meaningfully at Buddy.

Buddy, smiling – "Completely and utterly involuntary. We can't help ourselves."

Dawn – "Can I try?"

Lexx, with a bright smile – "On me? Sure. Go ahead."

Willow moved aside on the bench so Dawn could sit next to Lexx. They went through the same motions Willow had but Dawn's hands didn't seem to be doing anything. After a while Dawn looked down and frowned.

Dawn – "I don't think I have that. Though, might I just say, wow. It doesn't look like it but you've got great tone."

Lexx – "Aww, thanks. I work out a lot."

Fox, adding in quickly – "In bed."

Lexx – "Hey that's… Actually, that's kinda true. Back home, we didn't have those sun proof tattoos so we were stuck inside during the day. And Fox is way more fun than daytime television. Uhh."

Lexx stopped her own hands before they did anything too inappropriate to Dawn.

Lexx, shifting away on the bench – "Oh, sorry. I almost started up there myself. But weirdly, I've actually never gotten any complaints about that. People just think I'm really friendly."

Fox, laughing - "Lexx, you are really friendly."

Lexx, as if just figuring this out - "Oh yeah."

Willow, clasping her hands together – "Is there anything else?"

Buddy – "There's the biting thing too."

Willow – "Oh. Right. Bloodlust. But I was told that isn't a problem if you don't feed on humans and don't let yourself get too hungry."

Buddy – "That's not the biting thing I was talking about. It's, uh, a sex thing."

Lexx – "Biting can be like sex for vampires."

Buffy, eyeing Heidi – "It is?"

Heidi shrunk a little in her seat.

Lexx, seeing Heidi squirm a little – "Mostly for the person getting bitten. But it only works if you're gentle. If you bite too hard, it's just stings and isn't really that much fun at all. I'm guessing Buffy's the gentle sort."

Heidi, seeing that the gig is up – "Ugh. Yes. She's amazing."

Buffy – "That's why you keep hanging around me? Can't you find anyone else to bite you?"

Heidi, embarrassed – "I'm not very popular. I kind of killed a vampire when I was human and almost everyone down here knew them. They're still pissed at me for it."

Willow – "Weren't you turned in world war two? That's like over fifty years ago."

Heidi – "They really know how to keep a grudge."

Buffy, not entirely buying this – "Are you really trying to tell me you don't have any friends?"

Heidi – "I have friends. Lots of friends. Though, most of them just want sex from me. And none of them are girls."

Willow – "That's so sad and kind of icky."

Buffy – "Just so I understand this, when I bite Heidi, it feels good to her?"

Heidi – "I'm surprised you couldn't tell."

Buffy – "I'm kind of busy having hallucinations at the time."

Dawn – "Why? What else are you doing?"

Fox – "That's just what happens when a slayer drains a vampire. You get all these flashes of memory from the vampire. Or when you bite a Heidi, in this case."

Buffy – "So that doesn't normally happen when you guys drink blood? It only happens you drink blood from a vampire?"

Fox – "That's right. Only vampires. I used to do that for fun."

Lexx – "Until I put a stop to it. He'd do it in the middle of fights. He could get himself killed doing that. Oh, hey. It's the other me. The one with the eye patch. And I seem happy for some reason. Maybe someone got laid."

Everyone turned to see Future Xander, Faith and Tara walking straight towards their table. True to Lexx's word, Future Xander did indeed look happy. Actually, very happy.

Buffy – "Hey Xander. You seem chipper. Which is good. Chipper is good, right?"

Xander – "I'm happy because I have a reason to be happy."

Willow – "Actually, now that you're here, I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that happened when you were –"

Xander, stopping her – "Willow, if this is about evil me, he felt that you had nothing to be sorry for at all. In fact, it was his pleasure to serve you."

Willow – "Really?"

Xander – "Really. And don't worry about me either. What happened happened. We've all done things we're not proud of. But we learn from it and we move on. And I want you to know that I still consider you a very good friend. That goes for Buffy and Dawn too."

Buffy, finding this sort of funny – "That's really big of you, Xander. Thanks."

Xander, lifting up a large cloth covered object – "There's no thanks necessary. We're friends. And in the name of friendship, I'm going to show you something that will rock your world."

Faith – "Like I haven't heard that before."

Xander, to Faith – "You had to ruin it, didn't you? Now I have to build up suspense again."

Xander took in a breath and let it out slowly as he tried to remember his lines..

Xander – "Okay. Ummm. I've sort of forgotten my lines."

Fox – "You could just show us what you're hiding."

Xander, deflated – "Oh, alright. Here we go."

Xander held the object he had lifted up earlier and slid the cloth off to reveal nothing less than the Scythe, the axe-shaped slayers best friend.

Xander, getting a gasp out of several people at the table – "Ta da!"

Buddy, not a gasper – "No offence but that looks kinda -"

Fox – "Gay!"

Xander – "Says the two guys who finish each others sentences?"

Buffy, ignoring the male slayers – "Xander, where did you get that?"

Xander, handing the scythe to Buffy – "Under the vineyard, buried under a pile of dirt and rock. It turns out that there's actually a spell to locate it. We were given it from another dimension."

Buffy, with her eyes roaming over the scythe in her hands as she turned it in her hands – "I don't know how I forgot about this."

Fox, frowning deeply – "I think I'm missing something. Is this a girl thing?"

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "Here."

She handed him the scythe and his eyes widened as he felt the power coming off it.

Fox – "Dammmn! What is this thing?!"

Buffy – "It's a weapon designed for slayers."

Xander, rubbing his hands together gleefully – "And it can make new slayers too. Right, Willow?"

Willow – "Uhh, yeah. I suppose it can."

Xander – "So how's about it, Willow? Wanna call a whole big bunch of slayers again?"

Willow frowned, looked at the scythe then back at Xander.

Then she frowned some more.

Xander – "What is it?"

Willow – "Ummm. I don't know how to tell you this but… I'm a vampire."

Xander – "I'm not holding it against you. I'm not that much of a hypocrite."

Willow – "That sort of magic is …. I know how to say in a way you'll understand. I'll just say this. As a vampire, if I tried to use the scythe, I'd probably explode."

Xander – "Why?"

Willow – "Vampires can't do that sort of magic. I'm no longer big mojo girl. I'm just another vampire."

Xander – "Oh. Well, that's disappointing."

Fox, looking down at the Scythe – "You're saying this can make new slayers?"

Xander – "It can turn potential slayers into slayers actual. In the future, Willow used it to activate all slayers across the world. It was pretty awesome until the world started to end."

Willow – "Actually, before we try that again, maybe we should investigate the possible consequences of that spell."

Xander – "Consequences? I think the only consequence I'd worry about it avoiding slayers who want to stake us."

Willow – "I can't help but feel that we were doing something wrong. The first evil all but destroyed the watchers council. If we were going to research consequences of such a spell, they would've been who we'd ask. Without them, there's no way we could know."

Xander – "Okay. That does make some sense. But there weren't any consequences."

Willow, looking down at the table – "And.. um.."

Dawn – "What?"

Willow – "Okay, look. I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to bring everyone down. I mean, we were facing the extinction of the human race. I didn't want to rub salt into the wounds. Even Illyria thought it would be pointless."

Buffy – "There were consequences? What were they?"

Willow, in complete ramble mode – "I might be entirely wrong and even if I'm not there's no way we could've known. Because the watchers council was destroyed and if we could've asked anyone about it, it would've been them. But the first killed them so we couldn't ask them and -"

Dawn, getting impatient – "Just spit it out already!"

Willow – "I think maybe I made the face eaters…. Maybe."

For a few second, the only sound at the table was Fox's hands tightening hard around the scythe. But he didn't look like he was planning on using it just yet.

Buffy – "Oh god. I'm so stupid."

Dawn – "I don't understand. How could we have made them with that spell?"

Willow – "Dawn, you weren't there when we dissected a face eater. We figured out that they contained slayer energy. Maybe when I activated the slayers, there was a face eater attuned to whatever frequency the potential slayers are. So I called all the slayers plus one evil demon. Then that evil demon became two and then, you know, extinction of the human race."

Lexx – "You think they have slayer powers?"

Buddy, trying to think with all this – "They're about as strong as a slayer. Just a lot slower."

Buffy – "It must be that armor like skin. It weighs them down a lot."

Faith – "This is so messed up. We destroy the world. Us?! We're the bad guys?"

This got Faith a few odd looks from the future crew but she didn't seem to notice.

Willow – "I just don't know. Maybe they stole the slayer energy off a slayer somehow. Or maybe Illyria was wrong and it's unrelated."

Buffy, obviously troubled – "I'm not sure it is. The first was working with the face eaters. But there's something I'm missing. I just wish it talked to itself more. Then maybe I would've been able to overhear something."

Xander – "What do you mean you wish it talked to itself more? Wait, you saw everything when it possessed you?"

Buffy nodded – "And heard and tasted and felt. Not a pleasant experience. But I guess I don't need to tell you about that."

Xander – "Evil me wasn't that bad. Except for his demon fetish. Ugh! I'll never feel clean again."

Willow – "What about that demon girl, Clarisse. She seemed nice enough."

Xander – "Clarisse was great, which is something I never thought I'd say so easily about a demon. But the others… Let me just put it this way. Evil me made a mental list of every demon I killed as a human with the aim of having sex with them all. At least those that it's possible to have sex with."

Willow – "You're kidding. He never told me that."

Dawn, cringing – "He told me that."

Xander, also cringing – "He got over half way through."

Buffy – "As horrid as that sounds, what are we going to do? If the face eaters are using slayer juice, could we use the scythe to stop them?"

Willow, frowning – "You mean, deactivate all the slayers?"

Dawn – "Hold on. Isn't the whole slayer thing why the vampires here aren't evil?"

Faith – "Besides, I like being a slayer. I don't want to go back to what I was. That would suck donkey balls."

Willow – "I don't even know if it's possible."

Buffy – "If it is and if it would stop them, maybe we should think about it."

Dawn – "And what if everyone here turns evil?"

Xander – "I'm thinking thermonuclear device."

Everyone at the table looked up at him.

Xander – "It'd be quick."

Buffy – "Xander. It's not like we can just steal a nuke."

Xander – "Oh, right. You missed that part."

Buffy – "You stole a nuke!?"

Willow – "Illyria helped."

Heidi – "You wouldn't have to steal one. Buffy already has several."

Buffy – "I do? I mean, she does? Where would she get them from?"

Heidi – "You should know. You stole them. Try to figure it out. End of world war two. Nuclear mines."

Buffy – "The nuclear mines with chickens inside?"

Xander – "Huh?"

Willow – "We were told about them in history class. There were nuclear mines left in Germany after world war two. They would detonate if tampered with but only if the electronics weren't frozen. To stop them freezing, they trapped a chicken inside."

Xander – "That seems unusually cruel. I don't remember hearing about this at all."

Willow – "It was history. You slept through history."

Xander – "Oh. That makes sense."

Heidi – "Buffy killed the chickens with gas, waited for the mines to freeze then tampered with them. They might not work anymore but I doubt think she threw them away."

Buddy – "Before we nuke everyone, we should figure out exactly where the stoners come from."

Buffy – "He's right."

Willow – "Buffy. Agreeing with your self all the time is kind of redundant."

Buffy, with a slight frown – "Oh. Right."

Xander – "And in the meantime, me and my very lovely sidekicks need to check out a few more worlds."

Willow - "You're still doing that? I thought there's only like thirteen dimensions we can get to."

Xander, defensively – "It takes longer than you'd think. Not only to check out the different worlds but then there's preparations needed. The watchers have to make potions for us and the portal spells keeps glitching."

Faith – "Then there's the thawing ourselves out."

Tara – "And the learning of new spells."

Xander – "And the coming down from mind altering drugs. It all takes up time."

Willow – "But isn't there another team checking out dimensions too?"

Xander – "So I'm told but I haven't seen them yet though. Apparently, they keep getting their ass kicked. But there are only five dimensions left. One of them has to be Buddy's dimension and one of them has to be where the face eaters come from. Either way, we're less than a week away from all out grand scale warfare."

Faith – "Which should be fun."

Xander, shaking his head grimly – "Not the wording I'd use."

Faith – "We've shown the future crew the big axe. Now can we get back to that magic portal job we were just talking about?"

Xander – "You're right. Let's go."

With that said, Xander walked off with Tara and Faith in tow. Most at the table went back to thinking, drinking blood or eating their cheesecake. But Fox watched them go with a little concern.

Fox – "Hey, I was just thinking. This time next week, we could all be dead. We should live it up while we can."

Lexx, not sure where he was going – "I thought we were. We've been having some pretty crazy sex. Ooh! Are you finally going to take me on a date?"

Fox, definitely not wanting to give the wrong idea – "No! I mean, yes, I'll take you on a date when we get back home. I was sort of thinking about girl me."

Lexx, deflated – "What about her? You're not thinking about having sex with her, are you?"

Fox – "Well, uh. No. Not entirely. I was thinking that she doesn't have what you and I have."

Willow – "I'm curious. What do you two have?"

Fox, as if it was obvious – "I love Lexx. I used to think love was for babies but Lexx changed my mind."

Lexx cooed and bunched up next to Fox.

Lexx – "Fox, you're so right. We should find her someone."

Dawn – "Good luck with that. About the only guys down here are watchers."

Fox – "I don't think it has to a guy. She seems to like Buffy."

Buffy looked up from Heidi's cheesecake and blinked at Fox.

Buffy – "Not going to happen. Despite the fact that she's all cute and possibly a minor, she scares me more than ever."

Fox, turning to Buddy – "Do I scare you?"

Buddy – "Usually it's in a good way."

As Fox tried to understand that, the public announcement speakers crackled as someone turned them on and many people tilted their heads up to listen.

Pubic announcement girl on the PA – "Good morning under city. Can I please have your attention of today's public announcement. Firstly, before delivering clothes to the Laundromat for cleaning, please empty all pockets. That goes double for any concealed weapons you might have hidden in your clothes. Last night, someone had to get stitches after a flick knife fell out of a pocket and stabbed them in the foot."

Several people in the room started laughing about that.

PA girl, using the awesome power of screaming into her microphone – "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

Everyone winced and there was a cry of "get on with it" heard in the distance.

PA girl – "For the last time, the little pussycat club is not a sex club. That's correct. Sex does not occur there. But it is for vampires only. Any further disturbances in the little pussycat club will be dealt with personally by someone in a very senior position. They will not be gentle!"

PA girl, after taking in a deep breath – "Now for something I'm sure many of you will have been waiting for. The rumors are correct. There will be another tactical team created. Try outs are in the training rooms near the tower of doom. No temporary slayers under the age of three hundred years need apply. Supervised training sessions will be suspended but will resume tomorrow. That is all. Good day."

Many people stood out of their chairs, suddenly very alert. Heidi seemed surprised by this but no one else at the table knew the significance. Heidi quickly scoffed down the rest of her cheesecake and got up to return her plate and cake fork.

Buffy – "What's going on? What's a tactical team?"

Heidi, stopping – "You don't know."

Lexx – "I don't think any of us know. Do we?"

Heidi, sitting down with a sigh – "The tac teams are the best of the best. They're like the navy seals of slayers."

Willow, frowning – "Shouldn't you say they're like the storm troopers of slayers?"

Heidi, ignoring Willow – "Everyone in a tac team undergoes magical augmentation. It makes you stronger and faster and just better in every single way. It's like a short cut to add centuries onto your life. Everyone who goes through it comes out tough as nails."

Buffy, now frowning too – "Aging yourself would normally be a bad thing."

Heidi - "Have you ever seen a master vampire who didn't quite look like a normal vampire? Either too many teeth or they can't turn their game face off?"

Buddy – "Sure. A few times actually."

Fox – "Does hooves for hands count?"

Heidi - "Yeah. That sort of thing."

Fox – "Then me too."

Heidi – "Those vampires have gone through rites of augmentation, making them stronger, giving them new abilities and so on."

Fox – "And making them fricken ugly."

Heidi - "We don't do that part. As long as you can keep your game face off during our rites of augmentation, you shouldn't come out deformed."

Fox – "But if we keep it on then…"

Heidi, getting up again – "Then you're just an idiot."

Buffy – "But you're not a vampire, remember."

Heidi – "Queen Buffy found a way to do the same thing for Succubae."

Buffy, grinning – "I did? Man, I'm just so cool."

Willow, as Heidi started walking off again – "Hold on, Heidi! If this makes someone stronger, why don't they just do it to everyone?"

Heidi – "It doesn't work for everyone. The magics involved are really quite drastic. If you can't handle the magic, it'll kill you."

Lexx - "But we're all slayers."

Heidi - "That's not always enough for this. Most of the people in tac teams are hundreds of years old. But since succubae usually qualify much younger I'm going to try out now. Buffy, you should too. You're pretty strong for a newbie. You might make it."

Fox and Buddy gave each other smiles.

Buddy – "Let's try out."

Fox – "Yeah. Could be fun."

Buffy, not as enthusiastic – "I guess I should too."

Buddy gave Lara a quick but sweet kiss goodbye while Fox tried the same with Lexx only to have Lexx wrap her arms around his neck and cling on for dear life as he lifted her out of her seat.

Fox mumbled something and she let go, with a smirk.

Fox – "You're a nut."

Lexx, with a naughty wink – "See you tonight, big boy."

Lara – "Same goes for you, Buddy."

Dawn – "Have fun doing whatever."

Heidi, Buddy, Fox and Buffy left with Buddy giving the table a curt wave before going on his way.

Willow, taking the Scythe – "I think I'll research this thing now."

Dawn – "Keep your eyes on that. I hear that some of the girls down here steal weapons that they think are pretty."

Willow, with a frown – "Uh, okay. I'll remember that. I'll be at the berthing later if you want to see me."

Dawn, nodding – "Sure. See ya then."

Left at the table, there was only Dawn, Lara and Lexx.

Dawn – "Ugh. I'm glad there's no training today. My back is killing me today."

Lexx, deviously – "Really? Want a back rub?"

Dawn looked like she was tempted then laughed it away.

Dawn – "No, thanks. I'll just take it easy today. My vampire healing should fix it."

Lexx – "Yeah. Vampire healing doesn't get old. But if you ever want a back rub, think of me, kay?"

Dawn, curiously – "Do you like me in.. that way?"

Lexx – "You're not really my type but I think you're fun. I think we'd have fun together. Don't you?"

Dawn – "That's weird. Because I don't think that's how Xander sees me."

Lexx, snorting – "He's a man. They don't know what they want."

Lara – "As someone who was born a man, I totally agree with that sentiment."

Dawn – "Huh? You were born a man? Holy cow. You must've had some major surgery. Oh, that's right. Body swapping magic was involved. Uh…So do you still like girls?"

Lara – "Huh?"

Dawn – "I read once that a lot of men who undergo sex change operations still like girls."

Lexx, grinning – "She totally loves me."

Lara – "But in a completely platonic way."

Lexx – "Completely platonic and we sometimes have sex together."

Lara – "Just because I love you platonically doesn't mean you have to love me back the same way."

Lexx stopped a moment to think about this.

Lexx – "You're saying you've only had sex with me because I wanted it? Wow. That's so selfless. I didn't know."

Lara – "It's not entirely selfless. It gets our men riled up something fierce."

Lexx, giving Lara a hug – "But still, thanks."

Lara – "Hands."

Lexx – "Oh. Right, sorry."

Lara – "Not a problem."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere you never want to ever visit, despite the rather nice view of mountain ranges.

Tara, Faith and Future Xander stood beside a pretty but sort of generic brunette, teenage girl and watched some guy take his shirt off.

The guy appeared to be around the same age as the girl and had an absurd haircut. It looked like Angel's hair but about six times bigger and more pompous.

Now that Xander thought about it, this kid really reminded him of Angel. If it was possible, this guy was even more broody. He was also supposed to be a vampire.

Then the event they were waiting for happened. The clouds parted and beams of sunlight reached down like the fingers of god, illuminating the vampire and showing his true form.

His true form happened to look a lot like his normal form, just a lot more sparkly.

Xander - "You've got to be kidding me. That's why you took us up here? You sparkle? That's so gay."

Edward, the vampire twinkling in the sunlight – "No, you're gay."

Faith, acting like she's defending Xander - "Xander sure is gay. But not as gay as you."

Xander – "What? Hey!"

Faith, to Xander – "You don't have sex with me. You want to be friends. That obviously means you're gay."

Tara, with a smirk – "She's got a point. I'm gay and I don't want to have sex with her either."

Faith –"You keep telling yourself that, Blondie."

Xander, to Edward – "Where I come from, we have vampires too. But I'm not talking about a cheesy eurotrash I vant to vipe you vindows' type. No, I'm talking about a spawn from hell, suck your blood through a hole in your neck, pillage your village type. But you, you sparkle! I'm just insulted that you call yourself a vampire."

Edward, obviously hurt by this – "Hey, you wanted to know what my true form was like."

Xander, talking to all around – "In the power vested in me by the state of Buffy, I shall name this world Twinkle verse. For without a doubt, this is the gayest world imaginable."

Faith - "This is all very Disney. But I think we've done everything we're supposed to. Do we have to stay here any longer?"

Xander - "I hope not. Let's go."

Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the last time Xander and company would visit the world of Twilight.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.

Authors note : That last part, if you hadn't already figured it out, was a crossover with the movie "Twilight" which I sort of hated.


	56. 17b Blood and sex

Episode 17, Chapter B : Blood and sex

Authors note : For anyone scared that I'm going to do a large crossover with "Twilight", I'm not. What you saw in the last chapter was pretty much it.

O-O-O-O

Back at the vampverse.

Fox, getting impatient – "Can I please do this thing now?"

A girl that looked half his size – "I already told you, only real slayers!"

Fox - "And I already told you! I am a real slayer!"

Buddy, calmer than Fox – "We're from the dimension where slayers are all guys."

The girl looked at him askew – "I thought that was just a joke going around."

Buddy – "Nope. It's real."

The girl frowned – "So how long have you guys been turned?"

Buddy – "About two years."

Fox – "One. What about it?"

The girl – "And you're vamps? I doubt you'll pass the magical part of the tests. Or the physical parts for that matter. I'll tell you what. Just so you'll stop wasting my time, see if you can pass the tower of doom. If you can't even do that, you'll know you're not supposed to be here."

Buddy, as if weighing the words – "Tower of doom?"

The girl, pointing – "Through there. To the caves. You can't miss it. Just look for the girl with the clipboard. Now leave me alone."

With that said, she walked off to do something else. Seeing nothing else to do, Buddy and Fox followed her instructions and walked though the door she had indicated. That led them "outside" and they kept walking towards a series of caves.

They knew the caves walls in the undercity were home to some of the more demonic citizens who preferred holes in the ground to more humanlike habitation. The caves were normally out of bounds, so this would be the first time they had actually gone to check them out.

Unless it was some sort of practical joke. In which case, they might be facing the wrath of a cranky demon. But it was nothing Buddy thought they couldn't handle.

As they neared the caves, they saw a human enough looking girl waiting for them on a simple chair. This one had a clipboard and a book that she was reading. When she saw them walking her way, she got off her chair to greet them.

Clipboard girl – "Tower of doom?"

Buddy, repeating what she said – "Tower of doom."

Clipboard girl, opening a large door – "In there. You've got five minutes starting now."

The walked through the door and into an obviously manmade tunnel that went straight up in a near perfect cylinder. At the top, light shone down gently upon them.

Buddy – "Hey, what are we supposed to do in here?"

Clipboard girl, closing the door - "Get to the top."

Then the door was closed and she locked it shut.

Fox – "Get to the top? How are we supposed to do that?"

But Fox got no answer.

Buddy touched the stone sides to the room. It was roughly hewn but not enough to be climbable.

Fox, banging on the door – "Hey! How are we supposed to get to the top!?"

Clipboard girl, muffled through the door – "I don't know! I've never done it before."

Buddy – "Well, this is crap."

Fox, looking up – "That's really high."

Buddy – "Yeah."

O-O-O-O

Yet another dimension.

Xander, Faith and Tara were walking down a road metal path toward the only activity they could hear for miles around.

It was a pitch black night and they looked to be in a southern state of America.

Xander, sniffing the air – "If I had to guess, Louisiana."

Faith – "Is there a hell mouth in Louisiana?"

Xander – "Not that I know of. But different world, different rules."

Tara – "I don't feel anything like that. This place just feels … normal. Magically, it feels very still. Almost stagnant. I can still feel the ripples of the portal we came through but nothing else."

Faith – "So you're saying we're in the middle of nowhere and nothing happens here? Great. Just great. This is worse than the glitter vamps. Hey, can't we use that rocket camera now to get a map? I wanna go kill something."

Tara – "That only works during the day. We would just get a black picture."

Faith grunted in disappointment while Xander chuckled and gave her a small hug around the shoulders.

Xander – "We're almost there, wherever there is. If you're lucky, there might be something to kill."

It did little to raise Faith's spirits though.

They turned on a bend in the road and found what seemed to be a diner full of people talking and drinking. Not only did it look like a place for the whole family but it also looked like a place for people drinking themselves into stupors. Quite a feat when you think about it.

When they walked in, the drop in volume was almost violent as all eyes turned towards them. The Scoobies couldn't really blame them for staring. They were wearing all black leather with reinforced joints, spine guards and anti-stake heart shields sown in underneath. It wasn't something you saw three people wearing for a jog.

Xander, with a smile – "Hi."

The barman, warily – "Hi."

Xander, getting a little embarrassed – "We got turned around."

Faith, playing along better than Xander – "Correction, you got turned around."

Xander – "Fine. I got turned around and now I don't have a clue where I am. I thought we might be able to get some directions. Normally I wouldn't need them but my GPS has gone haywire so a map would be good too."

Faith – "You know, while we're here, we should probably get some food too I'm hungry."

Xander – "Good idea. If it's okay with everyone, we'll just sit down in that booth over there."

The Scoobies walked over to an empty booth and waited for service. When it seemed nothing important was going to happen, people started chatting amongst themselves again.

There was a small quiet argument between the barman and a waitress. It looked like the waitress won as she turned on her heel and walked towards the Scoobies. She was blonde, cheerful and kind of odd looking but in a nice way. For some weird reason that Xander couldn't fathom, she reminded him of Buffy even though she didn't look that all similar. They didn't walk the same way either. There was just something a little different about her and he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

The blonde waitress – "Hi, I'm Sookie. I've got to apologize for our lack of a welcome. We just don't get many strangers around these parts."

Faith – "Can I have a beer?"

Sookie, not expecting that – "Excuse me?"

Xander – "Faith, you're only sixteen. Remember?"

Faith – "Oh come on. You know I can handle my booze. I can drink you under the table."

Tara – "We're not here to get drunk."

Faith – "And I can't get drunk off beer so mission successful."

Xander, to Sookie – "No beer for any of us."

Sookie, to Faith - "That accent, Bronx?"

Faith – "Boston."

Sookie, a little bashful - "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm terrible with accents."

Faith, considering this – "I guess it was a good guess."

Sookie – "Thanks. That's sweet. So, your order?"

Xander, with a big grin – "What's good?"

Sookie looked left and right, to check no one was looking in her direction before she spoke.

Sookie, whispering conspiratorially – "Are you trying to blend in?"

Tara – "I don't think we're doing a good job."

Sookie – "It'll be okay if you order some true bloods."

Xander – "True bloods?"

Sookie – "Sure. We stock them here."

Faith, not quite so quiet – "So what's true blood?"

Sookie, rolling her eyes – "Seriously? I think you're laying it on a bit thick."

Faith – "No, really. What's true blood?"

Xander, with what he hoped was a disarming grin – "Humor her."

Sookie, playing along – "True blood is mass produced blood made in Japan. Vampires drink it."

Faith – "Really? Then, I'll have some true blood."

Xander – "She doesn't mean that."

Xander, in a harsh whisper – "Remember the time we ate chocolate and we weren't quite right afterwards?"

Tara, also whispering – "You don't think they've got something similar going on here, do you?"

Xander, still whispering – "I have no clue. Let's not find out."

Sookie, also whispering – "I'm right, aren't I? You're totally vampires."

This surprised the Scoobies quite a bit, totally not expecting that.

Xander – "What? No. Are you insane? Like we've got reflections."

Sookie – "That's a myth. How would that even work?"

Xander, explaining – "Well, since a vampire is rejected as part of the natural order, some aspects of physics reject them too. It's the same reason sunlight and religious symbols burn them. Though, it's kind of strange how vampires getting burnt like that might be the only tangible proof of god we have. Unless you count magic."

Faith, looking at him askew – "Did you just babble? Have you been hanging around Willow?"

Xander – "It's just something I've been thinking about recently."

Sookie – "So no true blood? Okay. What will you have?"

Faith – "I could go for a steak."

Tara – "I'm not that hungry. Maybe just a milkshake."

Sookie – "Milkshake or thickshake?"

Tara, considering this – "Thickshake."

Xander – "Another stake for me and can we have some hot sauce?"

Sookie – "Sure."

Something had her standing there instead of going off to deliver her order.

Faith, grinning in an almost hopeful way – "Like something what you see?"

Sookie – "What?"

Faith – "Never mind."

Sookie, seeming a little disturbed by the Scoobies for some reason – "I'll, uh, just get your order."

This whole conversation was bugging Xander for some reason and he stopped Sookie before she walked off to deliver their order.

Xander – "Uh, waitress, I'm a reporter and I was just wondering, has anything happened recently in town? Anything unusual?"

Sookie – "Unusual like what?"

Xander – "Oh, I don't know. Animal attacks, gas leaks, a sudden spike in the number of unsolved murders. You know, that sort of thing?"

Sookie, squinting for some reason – "Now that you mention it -"

Then three new strangers entered the diner and the room went quiet again. It was two white guys and a black chick. One of the guys was bald and tattooed but probably wasn't a KKK member considering the company he kept.

Despite this, there was something about them that didn't sit right with Xander.

These three didn't want to blend in at all.

They slowly separated, as if to cover more ground in the diner. But they didn't seem to have any particular aim in mind.

The black chick went about casually toying with some young guy on a date with his girlfriend. His girlfriend seemed to be petrified in place while the black chick sniggered evilly.

Now that really didn't sit right with Xander.

Xander, whispering – "Faith, what's your radar say?"

Faith, also whispering – "Not much. I don't think they're vamps."

The stranger with hair – "Get us three true bloods."

The barman, not intimidated – "Ya'll need to go somewhere else. This is a family place. Locals only."

Stranger with hair – "Well, we just closed on a place up the road. So that makes us official citizens of Renard parish. We're the new locals."

Barman – "My place. My rules."

Stranger with hair – "Discrimination against vampires is punishable in the great state of Louisiana. Personally, I don't give a -"

Right then, Xander thumped the table he was at with victory.

Xander – "I knew it. We're in Louisiana and those three are vampires."

The vampires, the barman and much of the room turned towards Xander for a few seconds before moving back to what they thought was important.

Sookie, to Xander – "You're a bit slow on the uptake, aren't you?"

The vampire guy with hair, moving towards Sookie – "Well, hello, Sookie. You're looking delectable as always."

Xander and Faith got up, out of their booth and stood in front of Sookie, as if to protect her against the vampires. Tara took a bit more time to slide free but got up when she figured out what the play was.

Tara – "Guys. There's something weird going on here."

Faith, confrontationally – "Something's going on here alright."

Xander – "Hold on, Faith. Let's just get the lay of the land here. Everyone is agreed that these three individuals here are vampires? And I don't mean those posers with fake fangs. We're talking actual vampires who drink blood?"

Vamp guy with hair - "Sookie, where did you dig up these three?"

The girl vamp – "I think the guy is cute."

The bald guy – "I think the girls are cute. And those getups work."

The girl vamp – "You think I should get something like that?"

Faith, frowning and not so fighty – "Okay, there's really is something weird. They're sort of evil but they just don't come across as vampires."

Xander, to the barman – "And did I hear him correctly? Do vampires have rights here? Does everyone know about vampires in this world?"

The vampire with hair, to his vampire compadres – "I think I've figured him out. He's been in a coma."

Xander – "Actually, that's Faith."

Faith, looking at him oddly – "What?"

Xander – "Sorry. Wrong Faith. I forget sometimes."

Right then, someone new ran into the room from the front door and the vampires all turned to him. It was none other than Bill, everyone's favorite neighborhood vampire.

Bill was a reasonably handsome white guy with his brown hair parted more to one side than the other and always seemed to have a five o'clock shadow regardless of what the actual time was.

Bill – "What are you doing here?"

Vamp guy with hair – "Waiting for you."

Xander, referring to Bill – "Now that guy comes across as a vampire. Look at that complexion. That's a guy who's been missing out on sunlight."

Faith – "And that haircut is granddaddy chic."

Bald vampire to Faith – "You can stop talking now."

Faith, to Xander – "Can we stake them already? I'm getting bored."

Vamp girl – "What?"

Xander – "We can't stake them yet. My gut tells me they're vampires but I haven't seen any evidence yet. No fangs or anything."

Vamp with hair – "You want fangs? We got fangs."

The three unpleasant vampires bared their teeth and two sharp snake life fangs snapped into place on their top row. The effect was odd in that it didn't make them look that much more menacing, as opposed to looking silly.

Xander – "Huh. So they're vampires. But now I just feel pity for them. Those fangs are ridiculous."

Bill, to the barman – "Who are they?"

Barman – "I have no idea."

Xander – "I know this is a strange thing to ask but does anyone mind if we kill them? They seem to be terrorizing your population. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine."

The vamp with hair, laughing – "And how in the name of hell would you kill us?"

Xander, asking Sookie – "Just so I've got it all straight, wooden stakes kill vampires, right?"

Sookie - "I think so. But don't try fighting them. That's suicide."

Faith – "If stakes don't work, we'll just tear their heads off. No problem."

Tara – "I'm not sure about this, guys."

Faith, to Xander and Tara – "Whoa, wait. I think I know what's weird about this world. No slayers, right? They've got no vampire slayers."

The vamp with hair – "Bill, is this why you mainstream? These humans are hilarious. Vampire slayers?"

Faith – "Let's kill them now."

The enemy vampires cockily thought they were ready but weren't. In a flash, the Scoobies had their concealed stakes out, ready for their attack. Faith and Tara staked their targets with ease while Xander's vampire, the vamp with hair, hastily blocked his upwards strike. This happened more because of his arms flailing around in surprise than any martial arts training. Xander countered quickly by head butting them in the nose then going for another heart shot which hit dead on.

To everyone else in the diner, it looked as if they had practiced it beforehand.

Then the unexpected happened.

Instead of dusting, blood sprayed out of their mouths like a fire hose. The vampires spun around in pain, spraying the inhabitants of the diner, causing almost everyone to scream in panic. The vampires didn't do that for long before quickly disintegrating into sticky webs of oozing, steaming flesh which fell mostly on the unsuspecting Scoobies.

Faith, covered from head to toe in vampire goop – "Gah! What the hell? What is this?"

Sookie, covered in a decent amount of goop herself – "Oh my god. I think I'm going to be sick."

And she was sick, mostly over Tara who didn't seem too offended but a little shocked.

Bill, backing off along with the rest of diner – "How did you do that? What are you?"

Faith, ignoring him – "I've got it in my eye. Can someone get me a towel?"

Xander, seemingly mad at Bill – "Okay, you guys aren't proper vampires. Firstly, proper vampires turn to dust when you stake them. They don't do that! Secondly, everyone in this world knows about you? Isn't it supposed to be a secret? Thirdly, you're not attacking us. You're just standing there with this dumb look on your face."

Bill, with a dumb look on his face – "Uhhh."

Barman – "I'm running a blank here. Bill, do you know what these people are?"

Bill – "I have no idea, whatsoever."

Xander – "We're vampires!"

Bill – "No, I'm a vampire. You're something else altogether."

Tara – "Xander, stop arguing with him. Obviously their vampires are not like ours. He's … more polite."

Xander – "Yeah, what's with that?"

Tara – "Maybe vampires have souls here?"

Xander – "I don't know why but I hate it when they've got souls."

Faith, trying to get gunk out of her eyes – "Towel! I need a fricken towel! I can't see!"

Xander, groaning – "I already hate this world."

O-O-O-O

Back in the vampverse.

Buddy and Fox found themselves in a dingy disused room with some well toned girls inside.

Budd, recognizing a girl - "Hey Kendra. Looking good. Fox, this is Kendra, the slayer I was telling you about."

Fox, perpetually smirking – "We've met."

Kendra, a little stiff - "Hello Buddy. I heard you were back. And you too are looking good."

By the way she said it, it was more to be polite than provocative.

Buddy, smiling warmly – "Thanks. So you passed the tests too?"

Kendra, looking quite uncomfortable – "Yes. I passed the tests. Umm. Buddy, I don't know if you know this but that time you kissed me, that was my first time."

Fox, looking her up and down – "You're kidding. You? I can't believe that."

This just made her more uncomfortable.

Buddy, after giving Fox an unimpressed look – "Kendra, I won't say I didn't enjoy kissing you but you seemed genuinely angry afterwards so I'm sorry. I didn't know you hadn't been kissed before."

Kendra considered this coldly then nodded slightly.

Kendra – "I accept your apology."

Buddy – "Thanks. Now if you want to continue from where we left off then just ask."

Kendra gave him a shocked look.

Fox – "Is this girl really a vamp?"

Kendra, sounding a bit hurt – "Yes. I am vampire. But that doesn't give you the right to treat me with such disrespect."

Fox – "Disrespect? Girl, I've got nothing but respect for you."

Buddy – "Same. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the loose women in my life that I've forgotten how to treat a woman properly."

Fox, smirking – "I'll tell Angel you said that."

Buddy, to Kendra – "All the other girls I know seem to love it when I talk about their assets. But if you don't want to hear about how incredible you are, I'll respect your wishes."

Fox, as if talking about the weather – "We should probably forget telling about all the sex acts we've love to perform with her too, regardless of how much she'd enjoy them."

Buddy, to Fox – "Especially all the things we'd do to her together. Really, it's quite disgusting. I'm surprised our girlfriends beg for such shameful behavior."

Fox, grinning – "Like that thing Lexx likes, where you take her arms, I take her legs and we lift her off the bed at the same time to –"

Buddy stopped Fox by pressing a finger over his mouth.

Buddy – "Remember that we're trying to respect Kendra here."

Fox – "Oh, right. Respect. Sure. But if she gave me the chance, I'd respect her so hard she wouldn't know what hit her."

A blonde girl, to Kendra – "Are these boys harassing you?"

The boys looked the blonde up and down and frowned.

She was an uncomfortable amalgamation of sexiness and childlike innocence. She had a pixie like face that you'd expect on a small child but absolutely succulent legs encased in tight fishnet stockings, great boots and leather hot pants. While she did have breasts, they didn't exactly stand out. Everything good seemed to be on the bottom half of her body.

It was pretty obvious she knew her strengths but it was still unsettling.

Kendra looked over to Buddy and by the way he was looking at the girl, she guessed he was thinking the same thing. Though, Fox had decided to just stare at her ass.

Kendra – "Hi Catherine. Meet Buddy and Fox. They're the male alternates of Buffy and Faith. You've met Faith, haven't you?"

Catherine, smiling widely – "Not yet. But I heard she's a member of the Spike bashing community too."

Buddy – "Huh?"

Catherine – "Kendra and I fought Spike when we were human. There's a few others slayers down here that did too. Though, the three slayers he killed are out of the country at the moment. Two in Guangdong together and another in Brazil."

Fox – "Wait, Spike? That's Spiders alternate. He's killed slayers? Really?"

Kendra – "He, I mean she, didn't in your world?"

Buddy – "No. She didn't. The only person in the Scourge of Europe to kill a slayer was Durant. That's our version of your… What's her name again?"

Kendra – "Drusilla?"

Buddy – "That's her. Yes, he killed our world's version of you. We didn't kill him for but I beat the living daylights out of him. I still can't believe he managed to do that. I was so fricken angry."

Kendra – "The same thing happened here."

Buddy – "Oh. Uh, I'm sorry for bringing it up."

Fox – "You could count Angel in the slayer killing group too. He did turn Buddy. But I can't see Spider killing slayers."

Buffy from the future, behind Fox – "I think Drusilla put him up to it."

Fox turned around and grinned, seeing Buffy and Heidi standing there. Though, Heidi was distracted with some other conversation at this time.

Buffy, to Catherine – "And did you say Spike killed three slayers? That's different. In my timeline he only killed two."

Catherine nodded – "The third slayer is only known about by the watchers council and by us. He killed her when she was powerless for the cruciamentum."

Buffy – "Oh. So wouldn't that not count as a slayer then?"

Catherine – "I haven't heard him brag about it so I guess it doesn't to him."

Kendra, to Catherine – "Buffy fought Spike too."

Buffy – "That I did. But now that he has a soul, I'm okay with leaving him alone."

Catherine – "Why? I think he's way more fun now."

Buffy – "Excuse me?!"

Catherine, finding Buffy's response funny – "Did I hit a nerve?"

Buffy – "What? No. It's just, that's a weird thing to say."

Catherine – "You're not jealous, are you?"

Buffy, maybe a little jealous – "No. But what exactly are you doing to him?"

Catherine looked Buffy in the eyes for a few seconds then slowly smirked.

Catherine – "I've been training with him. It's a lot more fun than when he was trying to kill me. Though, now I'm jealous of you. He'd never do those things to me."

Buffy winced – "You can read minds, can't you."

Catherine nodded – "That I can."

Kendra, frowning – "I'm not understanding what they're talking about."

Buddy, to Buffy – "Just so you know, we're not supposed to talk about sex around Kendra. She thinks it's disrespectful."

Buffy – "I see. I also see that you were given a pass. Did you figure out the tower of doom?"

Fox - "It's like that motorcycle thing, the ring of doom. You just run along the walls to defy gravity."

Buffy – "That's what I did. It felt kind of like cheating."

Catherine – "Oh no, that is the way you're supposed to do it."

Buffy – "Oh. So what do we do now?"

Catherine – "Someone should come along and tell us soon."

True to her word, three girls came into the room and they seemed to be in charge. In front was a girl with scars streaking across her face. The scars looked old but bone deep. She also seemed quite emotionless. Behind her, she had a cute pudgy pint-sized half Asian, half European girl and a saucy Korean girl.

Scar girl – "Can I have some attention?"

Everyone stopped chatting and turned to her.

Scar girl, deadpan – "My name is Joke. Yes, that is my name. No, that's not how it's pronounced. The J is supposed to pronounced like a Y but then someone found out how my name was spelt and I haven't heard the end the of it. So now, everyone just calls me Joke. It's because I'm funny."

The way she said it, she was obviously lying.

Joke – "I've been told to lead this new tactical team. That means, you do what I say. Unlike some tac team leads, I won't try to control your life. I won't ask you to get me donuts. I don't care who you're having sex with or what your family life is like. That's your business. But when we're in action, you obey my words to the letter. Do we have an understanding?"

The rest of those there mumbled in the affirmative while two girls barked out "Yes, Joke, sir!"

Joke winced.

The saucy girl in Joke's entourage leaned over and whispered something into her ear, to which she nodded.

Joke – "Can we please line up?"

The girls assembled lined up and Joke looked them over.

Joke, to one of her entourage – "Are we in the right place?"

Joke's girl nodded.

Joke – "Then what's going on? What are these two guys doing here?"

Pudgy entourage girl – "They're Slayers from that gender bender verse."

Joke took a moment to study them before nodding.

Joke – "Okay. That has potential. What about Yaretzi? I know she's not a slayer."

That's when Buddy and Fox noticed Yaretzi, who must've slipped in when they weren't looking. She was a smoking hot, fully grown woman of South American decent that practically dripped sex appeal. She was tall, tanned, fit but also deliciously curvy too. As far as looks went, she was so far ahead of the little slayer girls who lived down in the undercity that comparing them wasn't fair. Buddy and Fox had seen her around before but had never really gotten a good chance to talk to her yet.

Yaretzi, with a sexily husky voice – "I've got a note from my doctor."

Joke looked at her with the blank face she had been wearing ever since she entered until Yaretzi handed the note to her.

Joke unfolded it and read it.

Joke – "Okay. It's your life. Don't blame me if you die horribly. Does anyone else have any…"

Joke stopped talking to stare at Buffy.

Joke – "You're the one from the future. Weren't you turned like last week?"

Buffy, as one of Joke's entourage gave her a clipboard – "Yes. But I'm a quick learner."

Joke, frowning as she looked over the clipboard – "That's unusual. You shouldn't be this strong so quickly."

Buffy – "I was told succubae are stronger than vampires."

The pudgy entourage girl – "That's more complicated than you'd think. You see, the original vampires are nothing like the vampires we get nowadays. They were much much stronger."

Buffy – "You're talking about the Turok'han? The vampires that used to live in this giant cave you call the under city?"

Joke – "So you know this story?"

Pudgy entourage girl, continuing regardless – "Well, the Turok'han were stronger because their bloodline was closer to the demon to that spawned all vampires. As new vampires are made and old vampires die, their blood keeps getting thinner. Eventually, they'll keep devolving until they become like …"

Joke, at the pudgy girl – "Like those that the slayers turn, the ones we call toys."

Pudgy girl – "Yeah, like me."

Buffy – "Okay. And?"

Pudgy – "Well, Buffy, the other Buffy, was the first Succubus to be created. She's the closest link to whatever demon turned her. The first Succubae probably aren't nearly as strong as the first vampire but since Succubae are a newer breed and most of them were turned by Buffy's blood, they tend to be stronger."

Heidi – "You could've just saved a lot of time and said yes, sucks are stronger."

Joke – "Moving on. Does anyone else have anything to declare?"

Buffy held up a hand – "I just want to know, how the heck did you kill all those Turok'han?"

Joke – "Flamethrowers. If that's all, let's go to the bloodbaths for the rites of transformation. Through there."

Buddy, as everyone walked through two large swinging doors – "Bloodbaths?"

Kendra – "You don't know what they do to us?"

Buddy – "I hope it doesn't involve killing lots of people."

Kendra – "It doesn't."

The room they had walked into was cavernous and with an extremely large stone totem in the middle. It looked more H. than anything you would attribute to an ancient civilization. The base was a few meters tall, with stairs to climb up it and had four large rectangular pits dug into it, radiating around the totem like points on a compass.

A number of watchers and other humans were waiting for them on top of the base. Also, and perhaps the most strange thing in the scene, there were two huge metal vats leaning against the cave wall along with what looked like an electrical generator and a pile of tubing. There were also some very large metal slabs and equally heavy looking locks. It looked like overkill security even for slayers.

A bored looking watcher – "Are we going to do this today?"

Joke – "Yes. We've got two sucks and fourteen vamps. Not as many as I hoped we'd get but beggars can't be choosers. How about we do the sucks and half the vamps now. Then, after a break, do the rest of the vamps."

Same watcher – "Fine by me. Let's just get this over with."

Fox – "Hold on. What are we going to do?"

Joke – "We submerge you in blood and do some magic."

Buffy – "Seriously?"

Buddy – "I think it sounds like fun."

Heidi, to Buffy – "Actually, they don't submerge us in blood. That's only for vampires."

Buffy – "What do they submerge us in then? Gatorade?"

Heidi – "There's no nice way to put it. I'll just say, getting enough blood to submerge a few people is way easier than what we'll be submerged in. It's very a succubus related fluid."

Buffy's eyes bugged out, part of her not believing what she was thinking up and a very scared part of her actually believing.

Buffy – "Whoa whoa no! I am totally not wanting to do that."

Heidi – "Buffy, I'll be in there with you. It'll be fine."

Fox, asking Buffy curiously – "Can I watch you getting submerged?"

Joke, ignoring the scared succubus – "We need volunteers for the first batch. We can fit two to three people into a bath at a time."

Fox, jumping at an opportunity – "Does anyone want a bath with me and Buddy?"

Quite a few girls seemed eager but Yaretzi, the superbabe from earlier, got the position as she ran up and kissed Buddy passionately on the mouth.

Fox, laughing raucously – "Haha! Okay, we've got a winner. There's still room for me in there, right?"

Buddy, a bit stunned – "If she's okay with that."

Yaretzi – "I'm more than okay with that. I wanted you inside me since I first saw you."

Buffy – "Too much information."

Fox, smirking – "Talk for yourself, shortie."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else in the undercity.

Captain Jack Harkness made his way through a badly lit corridor, into a large and better lit boardroom with one large oval boardroom style table. He was being directed by a girl who would only refer to him as "stud muffin."

That girl – "Here's your seat, stud muffin."

At the table there were maybe twenty people from a range of different dimensions sitting down. There was Fred the blue elder god and Spider and the female version of Angel and a few other people of interest. One he found more interesting that the others. So as he sat down, he tapped that someone on the shoulder and they turned around to see him smiling one of his patented slightly hammy grins.

Jack Harkness – "If we keep meeting like this, people are going to start talking. And might I say, Nice suit."

Martha Jones was dressed in a very well fitted black suit which was extremely nice and yet completely professional looking.

Martha Jones, giving him a hug – "Jack? Hi! What are you doing here?"

Jack Harkness – "I was going to ask you the same thing."

Martha Jones – "I'm acting on behalf of Unit."

Jack Harkness – "Well, that's boring. I was really hoping you were stalking me. But I'm glad Unit sent you. I could do with a familiar face when surrounded by these dangerous bloodthirsty creatures."

By the way he said dangerous and bloodthirsty, it sounded like he didn't quite believe it.

Martha Jones – "Dying might not be a problem for you but I don't mind saying they scare me."

Jack Harkness – "If it makes you feel any better, some of them are just are just thirsty for sex."

Martha Jones - "Yes, I heard about the succubuses."

Jack Harkness, correcting her – "Succubae. And the ones I've met so far have been nothing but nice."

He wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive way but she didn't catch that.

Martha Jones – "I still can't believe all this though. Their entire dimension is full of horror movie monsters."

Jack Harkness – "And ours is full of sci fi aliens. Some aliens live on blood too. Unfortunately, aliens that live on sex are a lot less common. And even then, many of them kill you during the act."

Martha Jones, smirking a little – "I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. But try to behave. The last thing we need is you causing an interdimensional incident with some underage girl."

Jack Harkness – "Like I'd ever let -"

He looked down at the name tag on his jacket they had given him so he could remember what his dimension was called here.

Jack Harkness – "Like I'd ever let Britain-verse down like that."

Martha Jones – "Do you know why we're called Britain-verse? From what I can tell, our Britain is quite similar to theirs."

Jack Harkness – "That's because their interdimensional portal in California takes them to Cardiff. It seems to be tied in with the space-time rift there."

Martha Jones – "The one you-know-who uses to recharge his tardis?"

Jack Harkness – "That's the way it's looking."

Sam Winchester, sitting next to Jack Harkness – "You think that name is bad?"

Jack and Martha turned to Sam and saw that sitting next to him wasn't his brother Dean but a surprisingly cold but beautiful blonde girl called Ruby.

Sam Winchester, continuing with what he was saying – "They're calling my dimension Dean-verse."

Jack Harkness – "That doesn't sound so bad but I don't see the significance."

Sam Winchester – "You wouldn't. Dean is my brother. He already has an ego the size of a planet but now he has that planet named after him."

Ruby – "I still don't understand how that happened."

Queen Buffy, walking into the room and eavesdropping with ease – "You can blame Faith on that. She seemed to be quite… enamored with a certain Dean."

Ruby, to Sam – "What is it with Dean and young girls?"

Sam – "I don't know. He's like catnip for them. Why did you think you're here instead of him? He gets enough young girls pining for him back home without going to a city full of them."

QueenBuffy, the only Buffy in the room, sat down at one end of the oval table and gave everyone a smile.

Buffy – "I hope the trip here wasn't too much trouble. But now we've got you here, I thought we'd go over a few things."

A four star general on the other side of the table – "Such as these face eaters of yours."

Buffy – "Well, yes. That's why we're all here. I take it we've all seen the footage of the attack that happened in my particular Sunnydale?"

Ruby – "I've seen the footage. And I've got to admit, I don't imagine they'll be a problem for my world."

Buffy – "Really? Why? What have you got?"

Ruby – "Demons."

Sam, a little confused – "Ruby?"

Ruby – "If these face eaters do visit my world with the intention of taking it over, they'll have a nasty surprise waiting for them. The demons in my world can possess anything. If face eaters attacked, we would just possess them and get them to kill themselves. Or possibly use them for weapons. Not that we would need them. We're tough enough by ourselves."

Buffy – "Oh. That must be nice. Maybe some of your demon friends could help us out?"

Ruby, glacially cold – "I don't have any demon friends."

Jack Harkness – "So you're safe. Lucky you. What about the rest of us? And can we think up a better name than face eaters?"

Spider, sitting next to the female version of Angel – "On our world, we call them stoners. Because their skin is as hard as stone. Fractures like it too."

Strangely, Spider was recovering from getting her soul back much faster than Spike. But then, Spike wasn't having heart to heart conversations with his Angel while Spider was.

A completely different four star general – "But think about the connotations. You can't expect me to direct my men to go out and shoot some stoners. It's ridiculous. They'd half expect the enemy to have the munchies."

Spider – "Munchies. Now that could work."

Buffy – "I was thinking of calling them headlesses."

Spider, argumentatively – "But they've still got heads."

Buffy – "Only half their heads."

Spider – "Why don't you just call them facelesses?"

Buffy – "Because they've got a face. Sort of."

Spider – "They've got a big mouth. What about mouthers? No. That's stupid."

Jack Harkness – "What about eaters for short? Most of us already know them as face eaters .It's not much of a stretch to shorten it."

Spider – "I guess that works."

Buffy, nodding with agreement – "Yeah, that works. It's… uh?"

Buffy stood up suddenly as she got a sudden nose bleed and her eyes started leaking blood

Buffy, stumbling back down into her chair – "What is going on?"

Fred, a little alarmed – "Buffy?"

Fred noticed that no one else seemed to be doing anything. They all watched Buffy with glassy eyes. For some reason, seeing Buffy cough up blood was the sexiest thing they had ever seen. Seeing that no one else was helping, Fred got out of her chair and picked Buffy up. Then she ran out of the room to get her some much needed attention.

Back in the boardroom, girls and guys turned towards each other. Then smashed together as the room spiraled surprisingly fast into a mindless sex orgy.

Several slayers tore Captain Harkness off Martha Jones and tore his clothes off while they were at it while two of the slayers seemed much more interested in Martha.

One of the slayers forcibly threw the surprised female Angel onto the middle of the table and clambered on top of the much larger woman. Then they both tore each others clothes off to get to the goodies underneath.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	57. 17c Indecent proposal

Episode 17, chapter C : Indecent proposal.

Authors note : And no, I've never seen that movie.

O-O-O-O

To Willow, it felt like she had been training all day but it had only been a few hours. It was mostly because she didn't want to be seen as getting preferential treatment but also because she wanted to learn how to use her new found vampire strength for good.

To begin with, she was having some trouble getting someone to train with. That was typical. Few people wanted to risk damaging Queen Buffy's plaything. But after a while, she ended up getting pummeled into the mats by a girl Willow didn't know beforehand was a psycho ex-girlfriend of Buffy's

This particular psycho ex-girlfriend was about twice Willow's size, bald, butch and covered in tattoos. Weirdly, that also seemed to be typical in Buffy's ex-girlfriends for some reason.

She was recuperating on Buffy's heart shaped bed when there was a knock at the door.

Willow's sore muscles ached as she got up and opened the door.

On the other side was a short girl who Willow had seen around Buffy's office a lot but still hadn't found out the name of. But because of her new vampire nose, Willow already knew a lot about her. The short girl was some slayer's childe. She was also promiscuous, bisexual with a preference for boys, liked having chocolate sauce licked off her body and didn't seem interested in bloodplay at all.

Yup. It's hard to keep things private from vampires.

Though, Willow guessed the girl in front of her could decipher much more embarrassing information about her.

Willow – "Uh, hi. Buffy isn't here right now."

Short girl, with clear concern on her face – "Actually, I thought you'd want to know. Buffy was just taken into the hospital.

Willow, a lot more alert – "Hospital? Why?"

Short girl, looking at her electronic notepad - "This says she was bleeding from her eyes."

Without a word, Willow ran. Her rush to the hospital was a blur. She could still remember where the hospital was from when they took her there after she was turned without a soul.

As she neared the hospital, she picked up Buffy's unique scent easily. But as she got inside the hospital walls, her nose was practically assaulted by the overwhelming scent of Buffy. It was intoxicating but she managed to track with it and started climbing a flight of the stairs.

After a few stories up, the scene got so strong that it stopped her in her tracks.

After a few seconds, she forced herself to move on as the scent was just getting stronger and stronger. As she found the right floor, she realized she could hear people screwing like feral children in almost all the separate rooms and she wondered what sort of hospital it was supposed to be.

Then she found that she couldn't track the smell anymore. It was everywhere, overpowering her senses and starting to cloud her judgment too.

That was when Willow spotted a little preteen girl who seemed very pleased with herself.

The young girl, walking easily up to Willow – "We've never been formally introduced. You're Willow, aren't you? My names Giana. It's nice to finally meet you."

Giana held out her hand for Willow to shake. Willow shook but felt the situation didn't warrant it.

Willow – "I'm looking for Buffy. I heard she's here."

Giana – "Ahh yes. Buffy. It looks like you're under equipped to handle her."

Willow, frowning as she tried to understand – "What?"

Giana – "She's a succubus, you're a girl. See where I'm going with this? I warned her about this but she didn't listen. Disrupt a suck's normal feeding habits and this is what happens."

Giana waited patiently for Willow to ask the question which Giana knew Willow would ask.

Willow – "What happened?"

Giana – "She dropped an F-Bomb?"

Willow – "A what?"

Giana – "When a succubus gets too starved, their body just floods the air with their pheromones. Well, it's not actually pheromones. But we haven't figured out a better name for it yet. It's what they use to hunt their prey, if you can call it that."

Willow – "What are you saying?"

Giana – "I see that she didn't tell you about her nature. If Buffy doesn't have proper sex, her body takes matters into its own hands. It's involuntary. There's no stopping biology."

Willow, back to being alarmed – "Whoa, what are you saying?"

Giana, turning slightly to point at two swinging doors – "She's in there. Take a look for yourself."

Willow passed by some nurses who seemed to be waiting guard and pushed her way through some swinging doors to find Buffy swarmed by naked, eager and very sweaty men clamoring for their own piece of Buffy goodness.

Willow stared, her mouth fell open and felt like she was going throw up. The awkward rhythmically squishing, animalistic spectacle she saw made her gut clench painfully in revulsion. She spun around and barged her way back out of the double doors, already crying. Her aching body suddenly wasn't forgotten anymore. In fact, it felt worse than ever.

Buffy didn't chase after her or even cry out a bad explanation either. Buffy either didn't care enough to notice her or just didn't care.

Willow felt ill as she realized that what she just witnessed was probably Buffy's idea of heaven.

Giana watched the red headed wreck of a girl limp away with a satisfied smirk on her face. Then she turned to a tallish blonde and smiled with a mouthful of metal teeth.

Giana – "Why don't you console her?"

The blonde – "Because I don't really want to?"

Giana, with a little more power in her voice – "Go."

Dutifully, the blonde went off to track down Willow for a little consolation.

O-O-O-O

The room that Tara and Dawn shared.

Tara walked into the room with a towel around her waist, a towel around her upper body and a towel around her hair. It looked like she had just come in from a shower.

She was a little surprised by double the amount of raucous laughter she'd normally hear from Dawn and that was when she noticed there were two Dawns in her room.

One of the Dawns, coming down from a laughing fit – "Hey Tara. How was the other world?"

Tara, trying to figure out which Dawn was her Dawn – "Messy. So having fun with your twin?"

Dawn, presumably Tara's Dawn – "Yeah. I was just telling her about how we got together."

Tara – "The Calynthia powder. I don't remember much about what happened. But I think it could've been worse. At least I was with friends."

Her Dawn – "And family. Tara, you heard about Willow being your sister, right?"

Tara – "Yeah, I heard. I still can't believe Xander didn't tell me."

FutureDawn – "What? Wait, what? Tara isn't Willow's sister."

Tara – "Actually, I am. Half sister."

Tara's Dawn – "I bet you wished you knew that before you kissed her."

Tara, dumping her clothes in a clothes basket – "Oh god, don't remind me. That's so embarrassing."

FutureDawn – "Hold on. How is Tara and Willow sisters?"

Dawn – "They've got the same mother. An alternate Willow even had a DNA test to prove it. You didn't know? But you're from the future."

FutureDawn – "I totally didn't know. Oh my god, that's…"

Dawn – "What?"

FutureDawn, looking a bit ill – "Never mind."

Dawn – "Yeah, so, like I was saying. Faith had Tara think that I was sleeping with Lambie, While everyone out was out on patrol, Lambie included, I was snuggling up on the couch with Tara when out of the blue, she just laid one on me. I totally had no idea what to do."

FutureDawn stopped looking ill, only to laugh her head off.

FutureDawn – "She kissed you!?"

Dawn nodded with a little laugh of her own – "That's was my reaction!"

FutureDawn – "I thought it would be the other way around. So it progressed from there?"

Dawn – "No. Not really. I explained that I wasn't really gay. To be honest, I did have a teeny tiny crush on Tara but I was more scared of it than anything. Then Tara told me all the things Faith was saying about me and we just had to get her back. So we thought up a plan. The plan was that Tara and I pretend to be girlfriends to drive Faith insane."

This got another bout of laughter from FutureDawn.

Dawn – "Of course, we had to do a little practice kissing to make it look real. Then I found that I liked being her fake girlfriend more than making Faith insane. Though, we never got the courage to tell Faith about it. She just scared us too much. In fact, even with slayer powers, I'm still a little scared of her."

Tara, adjusting her towels – "But she knows now."

Dawn – "Yeah, it was a little obvious after you pushed us through that wall when we were naked."

FutureDawn laughed again, having trouble picturing that scene.

Tara, cringing – "I wasn't used to being super strong."

FutureDawn - "You know, Tara, something I've always wanted to say, besides all the sex you have with girls, you don't really come off as gay."

Tara frowned – "Huh?"

FutureDawn – "I'm not saying you're not beautiful and womanly and voluptuous and wonderful. I'm just saying, there's nothing about you that screams lesbian."

Dawn, smirking – "Trust me, she's totally into girls."

Tara, squinting – "I just realized something. If one of you is from the future, shouldn't they look older?"

FutureDawn - "It seems we age really well."

Dawn – "Neat."

Tara, frowning – "Uhh. There's something else I wanted to ask about. And I feel a little silly asking about it when I'm only wearing towels. But Buffy, the one who's in charge, she just underwent some sort of magical accident. It almost killed her."

Both Dawn's looked alarmed.

Dawn – "Is she okay?"

Tara – "She's fine. They already know what caused it. Buddy and the Buffy from the future underwent a rite of transformation to make them stronger."

FutureDawn – "That tac team thing?"

Tara, nodding – "I think it's that. It turns out the rite of transformation is done with them literally submerged in blood. They fill them with magic that would normally kill them and the blood helps them survive it. However, because of the whole alternate twin effect, queen Buffy was affected too."

Both Dawns for some reason started looking a little guilty.

Tara, seeing this – "And so, I was wondering if you two had noticed anything like that. I know you've both got a natural talent for at least some sort of psychic power. That's why you can thrall people with your eyes so easily. So hows about it?"

Her Dawn – "It's not like we can hear each others thoughts or anything like that."

FutureDawn – "We just get little snippets here and there."

Tara - "Snippets? What do you mean?"

Dawn, a little embarrassed - "We sometimes pick up things from each other. Psychically. Sometimes if one of us is in pain or really happy, we get little snippets."

Tara, frowning as she realized something – "When you say really happy, you mean like… when I…"

FutureDawn, quickly – "We just feel the really good parts."

Tara – "You mean…"

Both Dawns got out of their chairs with imploring faces.

Her Dawn – "It's not like we can turn it off. It just happens."

FutureDawn – "And I really don't see everything. Just the, you know, the end. The most I get to see is like a minute, max."

Tara, to her Dawn – "And you can see what happens when she has sex too?"

Dawn – "I didn't want to tell you because I was scared. It felt like I was cheating on you. But I couldn't do anything about it."

FutureDawn – "And I've stopped having sex because she asked me to. It was obviously hurting her!"

Tara melted as she was a sucker and she knew it.

Tara, with open arms – "Come here."

Her Dawn hugged her tightly and she knew that she really was her Dawn. Her towels came loose and she yelped a little bit as she struggled to keep herself covered since they had company.

Though Future Dawn didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Her own Dawn thought it was a little funny.

Dawn, her hands slowly wandering up across Tara's back – "Tara. I just thought of something naughty."

Tara – "I don't think this is the time."

Dawn – "You like me, right?"

Tara – "You know I do."

Dawn – "How about two of me?"

Tara didn't really understand what she meant and was surprised when her Dawn pushed her backwards onto their bed. Tara, barely covered by the towels anymore, stared up at her Dawn as she crawled over her and held her arms above her head.

Her Dawn, to her twin – "I know you want to join in."

Tara, feeling out of her depth as the other Dawn carefully climbed onto the bed – "Oh goddess."

Her Dawn, playfully – "I know you are but what am I?"

O-O-O-O

Willow was being still consoled by Heather, the blonde girl that Giana had ordered around earlier.

Willow, sobbing – "I'm so stupid for thinking Buffy was really into me like that. She's centuries old and I'm just stupid."

Heather was getting bored but was playing her part as she held Willow close.

Heather – "It's not your fault. It's just what she is. Look at me."

Willow looked up at Heather and realized the girl was beautiful. She had delicate, gentle features. She was tall with long flowing blonde hair and had the softest greens eyes which seemed to hold only compassion.

Willow thought she looked like what an angel would look like. She also had a body any swimsuit model would be proud of.

Heather, soothing as she leant towards Willow – "It'll be okay."

Willow wasn't in a receptive mood and couldn't really understand what was happening properly as Heather's gameface turned on and she viciously bit her on the neck.

Willow screamed. At least she tried to. With teeth around her neck like that, it didn't work so great.

Then she tried violence. Willow kneed them the groin and thumped Heather on the head to no avail as the blonde seemed quite content to drain her. Then Willow pressed her thumbs into Heather's eyes and pushed. Heather reared off Willow immediately but didn't seem too hurt.

Willow ran away through some curtains, out of the large alcove in the hospital, holding her neck and screaming "Help!" but she found that the alcove was surrounded by a small crowd of "nurses."

At first she thought she was saved but then one of them pushed her over and they all laughed. She stared up at them in horror.

One nurse – "What do we have here?"

Another nurse, smirking – "A poor little toy. She looks like she needs a bandage."

Heather, coming up behind her – "Mmm, she tastes good."

Willow quickly scurried to her feet and ran out of there. No one tried to stop her. They just laughed at her antics.

O-O-O-O

Yaretzi, who they had learned was from Venezuela, kissed Buddy as he was trying to leave the showers.

Yaretzi, to Buddy – "You're amazing."

Fox, snuggling up behind her – "You're not bad yourself."

Yaretzi, pushing Fox off her – "But you're a pain in the ass."

Fox – "Oh. You didn't like that? I guess you couldn't say much since we were underwater.. or under blood.. So, sorry. I'll remember not to do that for next time."

Yaretzi – "Sorry Fox but there's not going to be a next time. I only have eyes for Buddy."

Buddy, frowning – "Yaretzi, before we got into the tub, you did catch the part where I said I've already got a girlfriend? She's great but she's not into other girls."

Fox – "While my girlfriend totally is. I think she'd like you."

Yaretzi, to Fox – "I told you. I'm only interested in Buddy."

Buddy – "And I'm telling you that my girlfriend doesn't mind me having the occasional fling but she's not interested in my having another girlfriend. I hope I'm being clear about this."

Fox, stating a matter of fact – "Yeah. It'd be cruel otherwise. Not to us but to all the cock hungry girls trapped down here. They want us so bad it hurts."

Buddy – "Also, I'm not sure I can get it up anymore. You've worn me out. Also, my ass is in serious pain. By the way, thanks a lot for that, Fox."

Fox, smirking – "You loved it."

Buddy, rolling his eyes – "Yes, I did. Now let's move on."

Yaretzi, stopping Buddy – "Buddy. I'm telling you I can be yours and you're seriously blowing me off for some human? Me?"

Buddy, gently moving her aside – "Yes. I am. But it's not because I don't like you. I just wasn't looking for anything serious. I just think there's been a communication problem and for that, I'm sorry."

Buddy walked away while Fox kept grinning.

Fox – "I'm still available."

To that, Yaretzi threw a towel in his face then stormed off.

O-O-O-O

There was an impatient knock at the door.

registered it.

Then the door opened and she found herself completely awake with Faith and Xander standing at the foot of her bed wearing frozen faces of shock.

Both the Dawns woke up too and it looked like neither of them knew what to say. Also, now that they were only covered by bed sheets, Tara couldn't figure out which Dawn was her Dawn again. They looked identical.

No one said anything until Faith laughed her head off.

Faith – "Damn, Tara! You bagged twins! Now I see why you keep giving me the cold shoulder. You've had this big ol' fangbang going on the whole time. I didn't know you had it in you."

Apparently Faith wasn't angry at all. In fact, she thought it was awesome.

Xander, not sure what he was feeling – "I'm speechless. Part of me thinks this is just awesome and part of me thinking… I don't know what that part is thinking. Tara, what the hell?"

Tara, shrinking under the covers – "It's not my fault. People keep seducing me."

One of the Dawns – "Give her a break, Xander. It's not like you haven't done worse things. Besides, we didn't give her much of an option."

The other Dawn – "Not that she minded. I'm pretty sure she loved it."

Faith, finding this funny – "It's always the ones you least suspect."

Xander, a little uncomfortable – "Seeing as how you're busy, maybe you can stay behind for the last world."

Tara – "What?"

Xander – "It's the last portal, Tara. It's probably where the eaters come from. It'll be dangerous. Look, you don't have to come along. That goes for you too, Faith. I'll just go in, take a look and warp back here really quickly."

Tara, apparently not so embarrassed anymore – "No. You're not. I'm going with you."

Faith – "Yeah. Me too. We've done every world together so far. It aint gonna stop now. We're a good team. Tara has her magic, you've got the experience and I've got…"

Xander – "Your knife keeps coming in handy."

Faith – "Yeah. I've got that going for me."

Tara – "And Faith, you're the best fighter out of all of us."

Faith – "You think? You're pretty awesome now, Tara."

Xander – "That she is. But I think she might be right. You're vicious."

Faith – "Aww, thanks guys. That means a lot. Group hug?"

Tara – "Maybe after I get dressed."

Faith, smirking – "I really should've asked five minutes ago. You would've said yes then."

Tara – "Can I have some privacy? Just give me a few minutes to get dressed."

Xander, leaving the room – "Sure. We'll be outside your door."

Faith kept smirking as she slinked out of the room, apparently quite pleased for some reason. When the door shut, Tara pulled some clothes under the covers and started putting them on. Obviously, she wasn't in an exhibitionist mood.

One of the Dawns – "That's weird. Faith was so angry that I was Tara's girlfriend before now. Why the change?"

The other Dawn, presumably from the Future – "By her logic, Tara rejected Faith because she had you. That's like Tara saying you're better than Faith. But now Faith thinks she was rejected for two girls, which she probably thinks is okay."

Tara, with some worry – "But when she finds out I don't have two girlfriends, she'll go back to hating, uh, whichever one of you is my real girlfriend. Sorry, I still can't tell which of you is mine."

The two Dawns looked at one another and seemed to come to some decision.

One of the Dawns, tentatively – "Uhh, Tara. What if we… weren't lying?"

Tara – "Huh?"

Same Dawn – "What if we were both your girlfriend?"

Tara stopped what she was doing and tried to consider that rationally.

Tara – "Look. I'm not going to lie. I really enjoyed what just happened. But that wouldn't be fair to you two."

Other Dawn – "Why not? That sex was awesome and you're incredible."

Tara, to the other Dawn who she presumed was from the future – "Aren't you already Willow's girlfriend?"

Future Dawn – "No. We've had sex a few times but we're not really together. We're just good friends. But I can totally see myself falling in love with you."

Tara – "But what about the, you know, twin thing?"

Her Dawn – "It's strangely not that strange. In fact, I'm really comfortable with her."

Future Dawn – "Me too. It's no problem at all. It's just like having sex with a mirror on the roof."

Tara considered all this and tried to fight the smile that was forcing its way onto her face.

Her Dawn – "She likes this idea."

Future Dawn, snuggling up against her twin – "I think she does."

Tara, seeming to give in – "You two are going to be the death of me."

The two Dawns pounced on her under the covers and peppered her with kisses, which made her laugh and slowly push them away. In the confusion, she had forgotten which Dawn was which.

One of the Dawns – "Maybe we should we let Phoenix in too."

Tara, with eyes bugging out – "Phoenix? He gets snippets too?"

One of the Dawns – "And we get snippets from him too. Maybe we should tell you what he just got up to."

The other Dawn, playfully smacking the other on the arm – "Ssh. That's a secret."

O-O-O-O

Buddy and Fox stood at the foot of their way too big, fun-sized bed and stared at what lay before them with tired eyes.

On the bed lay Lara, Buddy's girlfriend in socks and an extra large T-shirt she wears to bed. That wasn't so odd. Lexx, however, was wearing some skimpy leather underwear, a dog leash around her neck and was drooling over the squeaky toy in her mouth as she slept.

They were both asleep so they weren't saying anything but it was pretty obvious something happened. Despite the obvious kinkiness, the scene had a sort of innocence to it.

Buddy – "That really has no right to be so cute."

Fox, as a matter of fact – "They had kinky sex without us. They've never done that before. If I wasn't so spent, I'd fox them good."

Buddy – "I'd fox them too if my ass wasn't on fire."

There was a sudden flash which startled Buddy, as Fox took a picture of the scene.

That waked up the girls though. The squeaky toy squeaked as it fell out of Lexx's mouth and bounced off the bed sheet.

Lexx, mumbling – "Wha? Oh, hey, the boys are back."

Lara – "What did I tell you, Lexx? Dogs don't talk. If you want attention then bark."

Buddy - "What did we miss?"

Lara, after some thought – "Spider had sex with a four star general."

Fox - "Impressive."

Buddy - "True. Umm, I'm going to bed now."

Fox - "Same."

The two men fell forwards onto the bed at once, bouncing a surprised Lexx up into the air with the impact on the bed springs.

Lara, not bounced quite so much – "Now that I'm up. I think I'll grab some food. You guys want anything?"

But it looked like they were already asleep despite Lexx trying to snuggle her way between them.

Lara – "I guess not."

She got off the bed, wandered out of the bedroom into their personal kitchen area. She pulled a frozen hot pocket out of the small bar fridge and placed it in the old microwave they were given. She put it on for two minutes, knowing all too well that it'd take her at least twice that long to eat it after its finished cooking.

She totally wasn't ready for the vampire who spun her around and pressed her against the wall.

Yaretzi, who was twice Lara's size – "You must be Lara. Now that I've met you, I don't get what the fuss is about."

Lara tried to get free but her arms were held above her head, her feet were lifted off the ground and her legs were pressed hard against the wall while her mouth was muffled and kept shut by one of Yaretzi's hands.

Yaretzi, whispering into her ear – "I'm going to kill you now and you want to know what will happen to me? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all."

Lara's screams were muffled as Yaretzi forced her head sideways and plunged sharp teeth into her neck.

That was when Lara not only heard but felt a chair loud break against Yaretzi's back.

Yaretzi stopped draining Lara and dropped her as Lexx picked a broken piece of chair leg. When Lexx thrust forward with the stake, Yaretzi deflected the attack and Lexx killed the microwave instead.

Yaretzi tried to grab Lexx from behind but Lexx left the stake where it was and elbow her in the face. Yaretzi stumbled back and sized up Lexx.

Yaretzi, realizing Lexx wasn't much of a threat – "You're going to regret this."

Behind Yaretzi, Lexx saw Lara faint from blood loss. Blood pooled on the ground as she lay slowly dying. By the lack of sound coming from the bedroom, Buddy and Fox weren't going to help her this time.

O-O-O-O

Cue cliffhanger music.

Continued in next chapter


	58. 17d The Tempest

Episode 17, chapter D : The Tempest.

O-O-O-O

Willow had wandered aimlessly though the undercity to clear her head until she finally decided on a course of action.

She knew she wouldn't like it but it needed to be done. She needed answers and would find them at home.

Not her home on the surface but to the place that actually felt like home to her now.

Strangely, Buffy's office was empty. There weren't any guards or vampire dignitaries hanging around like usual.

Willow moved into the adjoining bedroom and didn't expect anyone to be there either. But on the other side was Buffy, covered in blue bruises that stood out in stark contrast to her now unnaturally pale skin. Her skin way too white, her veins too noticeable and the room stank of her.

Buffy was easing some pants on but once she saw Willow enter, she hurriedly finished and pulled on a jacket to hide her arms. The only skin she was showing now was on her hands and her face. Though, Buffy had already put some makeup on so at least her face looked presentable.

Buffy, obviously ashamed – "Willow, I know how you must feel."

Willow, angry – "Don't try to tell me what I'm feeling. You have no idea how I feel. I just saw my girlfriend get gangbanged then I got bitten in the neck."

Buffy, spotting the nasty gash in Willow's neck - "Who did that?!"

Willow – "It doesn't matter. I want answers. Now!"

Buffy – "Someone did a voodoo doll attack on me."

Willow wasn't expecting that.

Willow, frowning – "Like, with pins?"

Buffy – "Not quite. Did you hear about the trials for the tactical teams?"

Willow – "Yes but I'm not a proper slayer so I didn't go."

Buffy – "Those who pass the trials go through the rites of transformation. The rites are pretty intense and they'd kill most vampires, even slayers. That's why we suspend the vampires in blood. The blood helps sustain them through the rites."

Willow – "I think I follow. But what does that have to do with anything?"

Buffy – "Buddy and the other Buffy were put through the rites at the same time. The magic from the rites hit me when it hit them but unlike them, I wasn't suspended in anything. So it almost killed me. I really didn't have any control over myself. I'm sorry."

Willow – "And those men?"

Buffy – "Were entirely unnecessary. It's far quicker for me to just drain other succubae. All of them would have gladly let me. But Giana didn't ask any of them for help. Instead, she stuck me in a room with a bunch of guys."

Willow – "Which you fucked."

Buffy – "When succubae get really hungry, it's not that they can't control themselves. It's that the men around them can't control themselves. I didn't ask for it. I can hardly even remember it. I was barely conscious."

Willow – "What?! They raped you?"

Buffy, slumping down on the bed – "Not really. Regardless of what rapists will tell you, they choose to do it. These guys literally didn't have a choice."

Willow – "Of course they had a choice."

Buffy – "Willow, I'm not bragging when I say this but I'm the most powerful source of sex magic down here. The only sources stronger than me are sex gods. Without the right protection, they had no choice. Nobody ever has any choice."

As Buffy's voice trailed off at that part, Willow's brow furrowed with thought.

Willow – "That night we first made love. I didn't have a choice then either, did I?"

Buffy looked up at Willow, her eyes wet with tears.

Buffy - "No."

Willow – "Part of me always knew that. When we first started this, I felt so guilty. I knew wanting you made me a bad person. I didn't know how I could soil the real Buffy's memory like that. You weren't her. You were something dark and forbidden. And, I've got to admit, I liked it. But this has to stop. Now. You said something about protection from sex magic. What sort of protection?"

Buffy – "You'll be free of me. I won't be able to make you love me. There's a silver and gold medallion, in the chest over there."

Willow walked over to the small bronze chest on Buffy's chest of drawers. Willow had seen it before but hadn't figured out its significance yet. It looked ancient, perhaps from ancient Rome. But it was still serviceable. She opened it up to find it full of trinkets and half empty vials. She skimmed through it and found what must be the medallion.

It was silver, flat, circular, had a hole in the middle and had jagged grooves along its surface which had been lined with a reddish gold. As Willow held it, she could feel her head clear. She could still smell Buffy but it wasn't clouding her judgment.

With the medallion in her hands, she looked over to Buffy and felt that for the first time in a long time, she was really seeing Buffy for what she was.

Willow, slipping the medallion on around her neck – "So now I'm immune to your charms. Aren't you going to say something?"

Buffy – "What's there to say? There's nothing I can say that would make this right. I'm pathetic."

Willow sat down on the bed and Buffy flinched away from her.

Willow, with her arms open – "Buffy. You are pathetic. Now let me hug you."

Buffy didn't fight as Willow ever so gently folded arms around her.

Willow, as Buffy started crying in earnest – "It's okay. Let it out."

Buffy, blubbering – "I'm so sorry."

Willow didn't reply. Instead, she kissed Buffy, confusing the hell out of the blonde.

Buffy – "What are you doing?"

Willow – "Holding you. Kissing you. Loving you."

Buffy, not buying that – "You don't have to humor me."

Willow – "What? You're saying I can't kiss my girlfriend?"

Buffy – "Willow, we've sort of broken up."

Willow – "When?"

Buffy – "Just now."

Willow, smirking – "Are you sure about that? Because I don't remember us doing that. Besides, I wear the pants in this relationship. I say when we break up."

Buffy, squinting – "You still want me after all I've done to you? Seriously? Are you forgetting the whole Oz thing?"

Willow – "Oz schmoz. He's a prude. No fun at all."

Buffy, not really sure about this – "Uhhh, Willow, uhh."

Willow – "That's mistress to you. I'd whip you into shape if you weren't already so bruised. Actually, you should get some rest. After which, you can help me get back at this bitch at the hospital."

Buffy – "What about the whole dark and forbidden stuff and it must stop now part?"

Willow, rubbing her nose against Buffy's – "I guess maybe, deep down, I'm a bad person. Strangely enough, I'm not dying of guilt."

Willow kissed Buffy again and this time, Buffy kissed her back. When Willow eased off, Buffy looked like she expected the worst.

Willow, smirking – "You lying bitch. I'm so getting horny. This medallion doesn't do anything."

Buffy – "Huh?"

Willow – "You're not getting over this anytime soon, are you? Buffy, I love you. I loved you before you became a succubus with fancy sex magic powers. I'll probably always love you. Regardless of how evil you are. Though, I will have to spank you later. You've been a bad girl keeping all this from me."

Buffy, wiping her tears away – "Really?"

Then there was an urgent banging on the door.

Some girl on the other side – "Buffy?! Are you in there?"

Buffy – "Yes but this better be important."

The door opened and Buffy's second favorite red head, Bonny, came in. For some reason, Bonny had recently changed her hair to match Willow's and that made Willow more than a little uncomfortable.

Buffy – "Bonny, this isn't really a good time."

Bonny – "Buffy. It's your alternates. Those from the gender bender universe. They're in deep trouble."

Buffy, getting off the bed – "Why? What did they do?"

Bonny – "I don't know all the specifics yet but Giana's pissed."

Willow, standing up too – "That little girl?"

Buffy, frowning – "Giana is not just a little girl. Uh, Willow. I really need to check this out."

Willow – "I'll come with you. I'll give her a piece of my mind while we're there."

Buffy – "Let's find out what's going on first."

Willow, as they left the room – "This Giana, what's her problem anyway?"

Buffy – "She wants power."

Willow – "Why?"

Buffy – "Willow, you know this army of slayers I've assembled. I did it because I knew we'd need it if the face eaters were real. Most people down here thought I was crazy until we actually saw some eaters. Now they realize that if I have my way, they'll be risking their lives for some cause they might not believe in. Giana's been one of the biggest retractors. Truth be told, if we knew which dimension the eaters came from, we couldn't invade them yet, not with her stalling grand scale warfare."

Willow – "What? How can she stall you? Who is she?"

Buffy – "Her fuller name is Giana Giles."

Willow – "Giles? Really?"

Buffy, smirking – "I know. What self respecting parent would call their daughter that? Alliteration in a name. So gauche. Anyway, her father was a watcher for an active slayer. That slayer got turned. After the watcher killed the sire, the slayer went insane. You might remember hearing something about how that makes Slayers go psychotic? Well, this one did. Went totally insane. Pinned her watcher to a wall with stakes and made him watch while she tortured Giana. That's when Giana lost her teeth. She used to wear fake teeth but now she's got these nasty metal implants. Long story shorter, the got slayer got dusted and the watcher got ripped apart. The only thing left was Giana. She's always been messed up. I can't really blame her. But now she's starting to piss me off."

Willow – "That's disturbing and everything but you haven't told me why she's a mover and shaker."

Buffy – "She knows more about blood magic than anyone else down here. She's the one who figured out the rituals to convert evil vampires to our side and she helped figure out the rites of transformation for slayers. So she's very useful. Lots of people here owe her. Bonny, my alternate in trouble, is it something about the rites?"

Bonny – "No. From what I hear, they went through it fine. It's got to do with some girl, Yaretzi."

Buffy – "Yaretzi? Isn't she part of Giana's harem?"

Bonny - "That's right. Big boobs, big butt, big hair. A slayers childe but Giana gave her the go ahead for the rites anyway."

Buffy – "She what?! How old is she?"

Bonny – "Way too young and way too untalented. She's got a mystical potential of roadkill. Giana must've given her something so the rites wouldn't work on her. There's no other explanation."

Buffy – "The same could probably be said for my alternates. Someone fudged with the tests. They're in no state to go through the rites. They should be on a vacation."

Bonny – "I'd like to point out that you need a vacation more."

Buffy – "You're probably right. I'll tell you what, after this war, I'll take one."

Willow, squinting – "When you say vacation, you're talking about something else, aren't you?"

Bonny – "She's sharp."

Buffy – "That she is. Willow, a vacation is an injection we give slayers. It removes their slayer powers."

Willow – "Why?"

Buffy – "You know Oberon, the crazy jedi girl?"

Willow – "Yes."

Buffy – "The crazy part is temporary. Mostly temporary. When a slayer's been active for a few years, they start going crazy. That's not to say that we can't get proper crazy too. But it's usually just slayer driven insanity. When our slayer powers are taken out of the equation, we get better over time. So, every few years, we give our slayers a vacation."

Bonny – "The watchers used to do the same thing to Slayers on their eighteenth birthday until one of them thought it'd be fun to stick the powerless slayers in a cage with a… Actually, it's probably better you don't know. But Buffy really should be on vacation. She hasn't had one for over twenty years."

Buffy, a bit defensively – "Things just keep coming up."

Bonny – "You might notice, she's a lot crankier than she should be. Also, in bed, she can get violent."

Buffy, as if it was obvious – "That's why God invented bondage."

O-O-O-O

At the hospital.

Lexx – "Hey! I want to see Lara!"

Buddy, beside her – "Yeah! I need to know she's alright."

The small but beefy slayer guards didn't reply to their answers.

Fox, holding Lexx back – "I'm sure she's fine. They said they'd take care of her."

Lexx, looking miserable – "But she lost so much blood. I don't want to her to die. She's my best friend, Fox."

Fox – "She's NOT going to die. And if she did, they'd just bring her back as a vampire."

Buddy – "They better not. She's my girlfriend. If anyone's going to turn her, it should be me."

Buddy, Fox and Lexx were being kept in a very large interrogation room that Giana used for "group therapy", whatever the hell that meant in this hospital. Meanwhile, Lara was in intensive care being treated for massive blood loss. If it weren't for the temporary bestowal of slayer powers, she might already be dead.

Buddy, to Lexx – "I still can't believe you took down Yaretzi. She's like twice your size."

Fox – "Lexx is tougher than she looks."

Buddy – "You don't have to tell me but come on, that's pretty impressive. How'd you do it?"

Lexx – "I don't want to talk about it."

Giana, storming in – "Well, you're gonna talk about it! There's going to be a trial."

Lexx – "About how that skank bit Lara?"

Giana – "No. We don't have laws that protect humans down here. We'll charge you for nearly killing that so called skank."

Buffy, coming in too – "Giana! What's going on here?"

Willow and Bonny followed Buffy in and took up flanking positions behind her.

Giana – "Wow, Buffy. You look like crap. I guess those men just didn't give it to you hard enough."

Buffy – "You were talking about a trial."

Giana – "Yeah. I think your Lexx needs to go through the ordeal."

Lexx, a little scared – "What's the ordeal?"

Buffy – "It's a display of public humiliation. Trust me, you don't want one and you're not going to get one. You didn't do anything wrong."

Giana – "The hell she didn't! She assaulted a tac team member, right when we need them most. Yaretzi's got a broken neck now. Her head was almost torn off. She's even missing part of her rib cage. I think that sums up nicely how brutal the attack was."

Buffy, blinking at Lexx – "Really?"

Lexx, shrinking in on herself – "It happened so fast. I saw her bite Lara and I just went crazy. I had to stop her."

Bonny – "No one's asking the real question here. How did some little toy tear apart a tac team member? There shouldn't be any competition."

Giana – "It's obviously that slayer spell your Lambronazi cast. It's given her slayer powers."

Buffy – "But Yaretzi would have them too. So it's not really an issue. The only reasonable explanation is that your Yaretzi didn't go through the rites of transformation. If she had, there's little Lexx could do to her. If there's going to be a trial, it's going to be for you, Giana."

Giana – "Me?!"

Buffy – "It's obvious to anyone that you gave Yaretzi something to shield her against the rites. And you orchestrated the acceptance of my two alternates with the express aim of hurting me. Your aim was obviously character assassination."

Giana considered this then smirked.

Giana – "Actually, not so much character assassination as actual assassination. I was sure it was going to kill you but you're tougher than I gave you credit for."

Buffy's fist blurred forward to hit Giana in the face. But Giana caught it easily and squeezed, crushing Buffy's hand. Then, with a deft twist, Buffy found herself flipped over onto her butt.

Buffy blinked as her friends were brought down with similar ease. Willow somehow managed to slip away when it became painfully obvious they were going to lose.

Giana, still holding Buffy – "Let her run."

Buffy struggled, trying to overpower the much smaller girl but it was to no avail.

Giana, smiling a metal filled mouth down on Buffy – "Having some trouble? Yeah, there's a spell on this room. Your slayer powers won't work. Neither will the strength you get from being an ancient suck-bucket. I like to think of it as a magical wet blanket."

Buffy – "You won't get away with this!"

Giana – "But I already have. Your litter of runts are being rounded up as we speak."

O-O-O-O

The portal room.

The watchers who almost seemed to live in the portal room were doing watchery things when the lights went out, blanketing the bunker like hanger in darkness.

A British voice – "Could someone be a dear and please break out the emergency lighting? We mere humans cannot see in the dark."

A female, americanized voice – "I've got it."

There were some odd noises and slowly, as their eyes adjusted to the dark, they saw a slayer breaking and shaking some light sticks which she'd then throw around the room in a not so effective manner.

That was when another slayer caught one of the lightsticks as it flew in their direction.

As it started glowing in earnest, it illuminated the large gang of vampires assembled in the portal room. They weren't there when the lights turned out.

A watcher – "I say. What's the meaning of this?"

The crowd of vampires all seemed to smile at the same time.

One of the vampires in the crowd – "I've always wanted to beat up a watcher but I've never had a good reason until now."

O-O-O-O

The younger Xander was dragged out of Oberon's while Oberon stood by some girl he didn't know. She hung her head in a docile manner while he cried out for her to help.

Xander – "Oberon, help me!"

While other girls tied him up, another girl forced a gag into him mouth. Once he was effectively bound, they righted him up so he could stand on his newly shackled together feet.

Yet another girl he didn't know grabbed him by the jaw and smiled sadistically.

That girl – "You played a good man whore for Buffy. But Oberon's still under our power. Isn't that right, Oberon?"

Oberon nodded but didn't look happy about it.

O-O-O-O

Back at the portal room.

A watcher - "Don't make me spank you, little woman."

A bound vampire girl - "That slayer spell! I hate it! I hate it, hate it, hate it!"

The watchers had showed some stiff upper lip and won the day as they managed to overwhelm the slayers. They had help by some pro-Buffy vampires and demons but mostly it was the watchers. They greatly outnumbered the small force Giana sent to secure the portal room. Apparently, she thought the watchers would surrender without a fight. She might have forgotten they were temporarily given slayer powers.

No one had been killed yet. For a civil war, it was being remarkably civil so far. It turns out that the slayers tend to be very death averse when fighting their own kind. They're perfectly fine with beating the crap out of each other though.

Several people were unconscious and quite a few had broken bones. But for most of them, it was nothing permanent.

News somehow got around quickly that the portal room held the last vestiges of the pro-Buffy movement and before they shut the large blast doors, a few "survivors" scurried in for refuge.

But now the portal room was under siege by Giana and the doors were locked shut.

A big, bald, tattooed girl poked the bound slayer who was complaining.

Big, bald, tattooed girl – "You so picked the wrong side."

Complaining hostage – "Shut up! You're going to pay for this when those doors open."

A hyperventilating guy wearing tweed – "What are we going to do? What are we going to do! We're trapped."

A much calmer watcher – "Easy, boy. We're not trapped. We've still got this portal doohickey. We could go to another world if we wanted to."

A male watcher with a squeaky voice – "Actually, we can't. Not without electricity. We've been using technomancy to open our portals. If we tried it the old fashioned way, it would take us hours of chanting."

Another watcher, coming up behind squeaky voice guy – "And if we did open a portal, we would have no idea which world it would throw us into. No, that's not a good idea."

One of the pro-Buffy slayers – "Yeah. What if we ended up on that freezing world?"

Willow from the future – "What if we open the portal, someone jumps through, makes sure it's safe, drinks a potion, teleports back and tells us if it's safe?"

The watcher behind squeaky voice guy – "That wouldn't work either. The portal is only open for a minute or so. And it takes around thirty seconds for the potion to take effect. If we're really lucky, we might end up with fifteen seconds. Or we might end up with nothing."

A female watcher – "I've been working with Tara on a new hybrid system of magic. We call it sanguitechnomancy."

Future Willow, giving her an odd look – "Blood and technology magic?"

The female watcher – "It allows a vampire to let part of their demon to control electronics. It's possible it could be used to electrically power a device too. It doesn't require anything in the way of preparation, only the spilling of the casters blood."

The calm watcher from before – "I've been reading your report on that. It's not something any vampire would be able to do. They need to have at least some training in magic beforehand."

Future Willow, with a small hem – "Formerly strongest witch in the western hemisphere who is now a vampire reporting for duty."

The calm watcher – "Excuse me?"

Future Willow – "I was a witch. A powerful one. I only just became a vampire last week. I haven't forgotten how it works."

Younger Willow, to Future Willow – "Strongest witch in the western hemisphere? Really?"

Future Willow, with a smile – "In the future, when almost everyone is dead, I was probably the strongest witch on earth."

The calm watcher – "I believe we're getting ahead of ourselves. That fancy sanguitechnomancy takes time to learn. That's time we don't have."

A slayer – "Giana and Buffy are outside."

Almost everyone turned to a slayer who was sitting on a desk in the lotus position and with her eyes were closed

Another slayer, who the younger Willow recognized as a Succubus – "She's remote viewing."

No one seemed too surprised by this.

Sitting slayer – "Buffy's wearing some really gaudy gold leafed shackles with these little glowing crystals set into them."

Succubus slayer - "Slave shackles. They'll stop Buffy from being able to fight. She'll be no help to us now."

Sitting slayer, still with her eyes shut – "Did I mention they were gaudy? Eww. Oh no. They've got Oberon too."

Succubus slayer – "Really? I thought she'd be harder to take down."

Sitting slayer – "No. I mean, they have Oberon on their side."

Succubus slayer – "Oh crap. We're screwed. Have you seen what she can do?"

The younger Willow, completely serious – "I've got an idea. I go out there and beat the snot out of Giana."

Succubus Slayer – "As far as ideas go, that lacks a certain finesse."

Sitting slayer – "There's way too many out there for us to handle."

Younger Willow – "I'm not asking for you to handle them. Just me. I'll challenge Giana to a duel or something. I think I can take her."

Succubus Slayer – "You wouldn't stand a chance. She might be small but she's over four hundred years old. Plus, there are those rumors that she's figured out some way to make herself even stronger."

Younger Willow – "Obviously you don't know who I am. I'm the Tempest."

Squeaky watcher – "From the prophecy?"

Younger Willow – "That's right."

Older Willow – "Wait. What prophecy?"

Calm Watcher – "Lambronazi's prophecy. The tempest is a character she foretold would be both the unmovable object and the irresistible force. Someone decided that you fit the bill quite well. Though, personally, I believe Oberon is a better candidate."

Female Watcher – "No, Oberon is definitely the pretender."

Calm Watcher – "On what grounds?"

Female Watcher – "On several grounds. Oberon thought she was the fabled abomination, she tried to kill Buffy and she has an unhealthy attachment to one aspect of the blinded fool."

Calm Watcher – "Maybe that Faith girl will try to kill Buffy later. She's got a similar, more fitting unhealthy attachment too."

The older Willow decided not to mention anything about Faith while the younger Willow growled.

Younger Willow – "Shut UP!"

The watchers stopped bickering.

Younger Willow – "I am the Tempest and I'm going to prove it. As far as I can see, it's the only thing that will get us out of this mess. If I go out there and show everyone I'm the Tempest, they'll fall in line, won't they?"

Succubus slayer – "There's just the small problem of how would you do that?"

Younger Willow – "By kicking some major ass."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later.

Willow gurgled as Giana lifted her up by the throat.

Giana, baring a metallic smile – "People really should stop underestimating me."

While everyone else was watching Willow get tossed around like a ragdoll, the blast doors to the portal room rumbled as they closed.

Giana – "So tell me. Did you enjoy Heather?"

Willow – "Why are you doing this?"

Giana – "What? Slapping you around or overthrowing Buffy?"

Willow – "The overthrowing part."

Giana – "Buffy wants war. I don't. I'll stop this war before it even starts."

Willow, confused – "By not fighting it?"

Giana, smirking – "Whatever works. Buffy's reign is over! That means no more pointless idealism and no more stinking crusades to save humanity. It's our time now."

With that, Giana lifted Willow up a bit more and kicked her brutally in the gut. Willow folded like a deckchair as she was propelled through the air ten or so meters and skidded into some stone stairs when she landed.

Willow, slowly getting off the ground – "There's something you're forgetting. I'm the tempest."

Giana, laughing freely – "You're talking about that stupid prophecy? No one ever believed that."

Then Giana saw Willow's eyes had turned into two completely black balls of doom.

Willow – "I'll make you believe."

The air around Willow started crackling. Small pieces of gravel and loose trash started lifting off the ground as the intense magic started warping the laws of physics around her. The vampires cheering the fight on suddenly went quiet. In fact, it was as if the entire underground city went quiet.

Giana, backing off with fear – "Wait. How are you doing that? Vampires can't do that. You can't do that!"

Willow – "And yet I am."

Giana growled and let her gameface slip on. It made her look more like a little goblin than a vampire. It was sort of cute in a pug-nosed pup way. Giana roared forwards, only for Willow to release a small blast of lightning which made her stumble face first onto the cave floor.

After a few seconds, she got back up and tried again but with much less speed. As she tried to punch Willow in the face, Willow easily caught her fist. When Giana tried punching her with the other hand, Willow caught that as well. Then Willow lifted her off the ground by her wrists and Giana looked like she wanted to throw a tantrum.

.

Willow, smiling in an almost lazy way – "Sorry but this is a big girl game."

Giana growled again, wrapped her legs around Willow's waist, pulled herself closer and sunk her sharpened metal teeth into Willow's neck. Willow winced but didn't struggle. After a few seconds, Giana's legs went limp and Willow let her arms go.

Giana fell off her and thudded lightly on the ground, twitching slightly.

Willow – "My bloods too strong for you, little girl. You lose."

Everyone else watching, except for a few like Buffy, suddenly weren't so gung ho about fighting anymore. Most of them were already disbanding.

Willow – "Does anyone else want a go? No? Oberon, you'll listen to me from now on. Okay?"

Oberon nodded.

Willow – "Good girl. Now free Buffy."

Buffy's bindings were telekinetically dismantled and Buffy felt her strength rush back to her.

Willow, to Buffy – "You really are the luckiest bitch in history. You know that right?"

Buffy – "Yeah. I so know that. How did you do that?"

Willow, smirking – "Maybe Lambie knew this would happen."

Buffy squinted at Willow for a few seconds.

Buffy – "No, really. How did you do that?"

Willow, smiling – "I'll tell you later, if you're a good slave."

Buffy chuckling – "But you just broke me out of shackles. You're terrible."

Willow gave Buffy another smirk then looked back at Giana's limp body which no one seemed to be interested in.

Willow – "Now what am I going to do with her? We could kill her but… ten year olds make such crappy bad guys."

O-O-O-O

At the back of the portal room, away from prying eyes.

Future Willow collapsed when the watchers stopped pumping her full of dark eldritch energies.

Future Willow, working out a kink in her neck – "That was different. Did it work?"

The remote viewing slayer from before – "Yeah. Giana blacked out when she bit the other you. The black magic kicker worked perfectly."

Future Willow – "Great. How's the other me doing?"

Remote viewer slayer - "Not bad. She's already on second base with Buffy."

Future Willow, frowning – "So no side effects then? Hmm. Why do I think I'm forgetting something?"

One of the watchers, looking very drained – "I need a drink."

O-O-O-O

At the hospital, things had already settled down. News traveled fast that the coup had failed and people quickly went back to business as usual.

The alternate Scoobies had been released but were still hanging around due to a complication with one of their numbers.

Buddy, skeptically – "And you're telling me that he'll be my childe?"

A nurse – "That's right."

That same nurse injected a dark red mixture into the stomach of an apparently dead Willard.

Lexx, worrying – "But what happened?"

Fox – "It looked like a heart attack to me."

Lexx, still worried – "What if he comes back wrong? People change when they're turned."

The nurse, actually being quite pleasant – "I'm sure any changes will be minor. He'll probably just want to snuggle a lot more. Slayer's toys tend to do that."

Buddy, grinning as he thought about this – "He'll probably let me have sex with him now too."

Lexx, now not so worried – "I totally didn't think of that. Hey, this could be great!"

Both Fox and Sam, Cordelia's male alternate, groaned.

Sam, leaving the room – "I really need to get out of here before I get turned too."

Lexx, watching Sam leave – "Now that has possibilities."

Fox, intrigued by that idea – "Yeah. That's hot."

O-O-O-O

Yet another dimension.

Faith – "I've got a sneaking suspicion that this isn't the world the eaters come from."

O the street below them, there was a tiny war going on between vampires and werewolves.

The vampires didn't seem to have game faces the werewolves were a lot nastier looking in wolf form and both sides were using guns.

Xander, frowning – "I think you're right."

Xander noticed Tara was sort of spacing out on the floor where she had her magic supplies all laid out and he felt a twinge of concern for her.

Xander – "Tara. Are you okay? You've been doing a lot of magic today. I know the darker sorts of magics can be dangerous. I hope you're not going dark side on us."

Tara – "It's not that."

Faith, smirking – "She probably can't wait to get back to her twins."

Tara – "It's not that either. It's those vampires and werewolves outside. From what I can tell, both sides have souls."

Faith, her face scrunching up – "So why are they fighting each other?"

Xander – "I think they're just a pack of idiots."

Faith – "You might be right."

Tara - "I doubt it's that simple."

Xander – "Welcome to the human condition. Uh, vampire condition. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. They're idiots. We're idiots. Everyone's an idiot. Most wars are meaningless but we still fight them."

Faith – "Uhh, isn't Buffy sort of on the war path with the eaters?"

Xander – "That's different."

Faith – "How?"

Xander – "I said most wars are meaningless. Most. Not all. But when we fight ourselves, it's because at least some of us are being stupid."

Faith – "So we're stupid. I'll give you that. But maybe we're not meant to live in peace."

Tara – "What?"

Faith – "Think about it. Who ever said we had to live in peace? I don't think we ever have. Even in times of peace, we still have murderers and pedophiles and sickos going around, doing stuff they shouldn't. Maybe it's part of the human condition too."

Tara – "I can't believe that. "

Faith – "Says the girl boning twins."

Tara, stuttering to her defense – "I-I-I'm not hurting anyone."

Faith – "Except maybe me. You know I want you, right? Tara, this thing I got for you, it's not casual. I'm not trying to pressure you into something but know that it's hurting me. Everyone hurts everyone else. It's no ones fault. It's just the way we are."

Xander, also frowning – "We all want things we can't have."

Faith – "Exactly. As much as I want Tara, I don't want to hurt her more. But some assholes aint as considerate as me. As long as there are people like that, we'll always have wars. There's no way around it."

He'd never seen Faith so philosophical before. She actually gave him something to think about. More than ever, he wanted to her happy. He'd rarely seen her so openly in pain either.

He had to remind himself that the girl in front of him wasn't the Faith he knew. She was someone else entirely.

But he knew the girl in front of him needed help but he had no idea how to go about it.

Faith, looking down on the gunfight – "Should we do something?"

Xander – "What? Get shot? Nah. Let's let them kill themselves and talk to the victors."

Faith – "You know the worst part about them both having souls?"

Xander – "You don't get to slay anything?"

Faith – "You know me so well. Ooh! Hey, Tara, I just thought up something which Dawn might be okay with. What if you let her have Xander on the condition that I get to have you? Or we could just get one huge bed and have a big ol' sex fest."

Tara's eyes bugged out at that suggestion. Two Dawns were bad enough. Adding Xander and Faith to the mix was more than she could think with.

Tara, not exactly committed to that idea– "I'll, umm, ask her about it."

Faith – "Cool. And be sure to let her know that I'm trying to compromise here. I'll even compromise in bed with her if I have to. Heh, compromise. I like that word."

O-O-O-O

End of Episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	59. 18a The vampire draft

Episode 18, chapter A :The vampire draft

Authors note : This episode is mostly in the Outtaverse.

Also, haven't posted anything for a while as I'm sort of dealing with an internet boycott drama at the moment. Because of this, my postings might be a bit erratic for the next month or so.

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse

At the top of a hill stood Buffy the succubus queen, the human versions of Buffy and Willow from the Outtaverse, a four star general from the Outtaverse SGC and a four star general from the Vampverse.

SuckBuffy – "We've got more than enough magic supplies now. So the take-me-home potions aren't going to be a problem anymore. And thanks for that, other me."

HumanBuffy – "You're welcome."

Suck Buffy – "But tanks are the major problem. Our stone circle won't work with tanks properly. They're just too big and heavy. I think we'll have to keep them entirely for defense."

HumanWillow – "Which is a pity."

HumanBuffy – "I'm not into guns but those tanks are awesome. Uh, hold on."

HumanBuffy picked up a pair of binoculars with one hand and held up a radio with another.

HumanBuffy, looking through the binoculars and talking into the radio – "Alpha 5, what are you doing?"

Some of the vampcandy vamps stopped what they were doing.

On the radio – "This is alpha 5. We're, uh, doing nothing."

HumanBuffy – "Mmhmm. Well, stop doing that. I can see you."

One of the candyvamps – "Ms Summers, uh, me and the guys were wondering… what are you wearing?"

HumanBuffy, rolling her eyes – "Stay out of trouble, boys."

HumanWillow, to HumanBuffy – "I think it's cute."

HumanBuffy – "It doesn't seem to matter which dimension I'm in, vampires keep hitting on me."

A four star general getting a little impatient – "Can we get back to the task at hand? The real problem with this war of yours is transport. Until we handle the transport problem, we won't be able to fight effectively. I'm told we can't build more of those stone portals."

SuckBuffy – "That's true. We don't know how. We don't even know who made our one."

Another general - "From what we've been told, the face eaters can move through dimensions at will. We can't. That makes us stationary and them mobile. That means they can hit any dimension they want and we won't be able to do a damn thing about it."

The first general – "And that puts us on the defensive. We can't properly fight them with the small numbers your stone portal will allow."

SuckBuffy – "I understand all that and I don't like it either."

HumanWillow – "The SGC has some technology they found a while back. They call it the mirror gate. It allows dimensional travel."

SuckBuffy – "Really?"

HumanWillow, nodding – "But it requires another mirror gate in the other dimension for it to work. At the moment, there aren't any other dimensions with mirror gates and they haven't figured out how it works yet. So they can't make anymore. But they're working night and day on the problem."

HumanBuffy – "If they can get that running, it could help solve a lot of problems."

SuckBuffy – "Yeah. They make a mirror gate, I take it home. Then take it to whatever dimension you guys need to get to. Would it be big enough for tanks?"

HumanWillow – "Uhh, I don't know. I think it's pretty small."

SuckBuffy – "Well, if you can get them to make it bigger, that'd be great."

One of the generals – "Then we just need to whip your girls into shape."

SuckBuffy, a little offended – "Hey. We're already in shape. We've probably got more combined combat experience than your entire fricken army. It's just we're not that good at pitched battles. Normally we just kill things."

Same general – "Exactly. There's more to soldiering than killing. Your girls have lots of heart, I'll give you that. But they're behind the times."

Other general – "Or more precisely, they're all from different times. None of them use the same tactics. We need some consistency."

HumanBuffy – "I think they might be right. This isn't exactly a well oiled machine."

SuckBuffy – "So what do we do? Keep practicing maneuvers until we work out the kinks?"

One of the generals – "That might take a while."

HumanBuffy – "I think part of the problem is the differences in our men. The human soldiers use guns. Which is fine, I guess. But the slayers don't. And some of those slayers move too fast for the humans to keep up. We need to work out how to use each unit effectively."

SuckBuffy, looking down on the battlefield – "Yeah. Like what are we going to do with your Faith?"

HumanBuffy frowned when she saw a tank rumble by with Faith sitting on the end of the barrel.

The Scoobies took a moment to stare as the tank commander was yelling at Faith in an attempt to get her off his tank. Then Willow's cell phone rang with a ring tone that sounded like something off star trek. Willow pulled it out, flicked it open and put it up to her ear.

Willow, still watching Faith – "Willow here."

Willow blinked a little as she heard the voice on the other side.

Willow – "Tara? Is that you?"

This got the attention of the other Scoobies too.

Tara, on the phone – "Yes, It's me. I'm back! I'm sooo sorry for leaving like that."

Willow – "Tara, where are you?"

HumanBuffy – "Tara?"

Tara, on the phone – "Turn around."

Willow turned around but only saw more desert.

Willow – "Uh, I turned around."

Tara – "Hold on, it'll take a few seconds."

Then Willow saw something she couldn't quite understand. In the sky, there was a bright blue curvy line slowly falling downwards. Then she started seeing black tower like shapes being revealed. The blue line kept rolling downwards, revealing more and more of what looked like a giant futuristic floating city.

It was huge.

Tara – "Uh, can you see us now? I'm told the cloaking field is off."

SuckBuffy – "What the hell is that!?"

HumanBuffy – "I have no idea."

Willow – "Tara. What is that?"

Tara – "Willow. Meet Atlantis. Atlantis, Willow."

O-O-O-O

SuckBuffy's girlfriend, VampWillow had decided to come along. The Dawn/Tell/Faith/Xander composite had come along too, in the form of Xander. Like Willow, Xander couldn't wait to walk inside a real life spaceship. Faith didn't seem to care for it while Tell had a strange aversion to spaceships. Dawn called it a phobia and she had acquired some of it too.

Xander – "This place is awesome!"

Tara – "Uhh, hey Xander. Nice to see you again."

Tara gave Xander a polite hug which he seemed to take at face value as a simple act of friendship.

SuckBuffy, out loud so everyone could hear – "You know, in my world, Tara and Xander have this awkward sexual tension thing going on. It's subtle but it's there."

Tara stopped hugging Xander and tried to smile but failed when she saw Buffy's undead alternate.

Tara – "Oh. Hello."

The very human Buffy – "I couldn't have put it better myself."

Tara – "And oh, you've brought a vampire version of Willow too. So we're keeping in touch with that other world where we're all vampires?"

HumanBuffy – "They're being very insistent that we help them out with their little war. So Tara. What happened?"

O-O-O-O

A couple of weeks earlier.

Tara found herself surrounded by submachine gun wielding guards in the gate room of Atlantis.

Tara - "Hi, I'm Tara. So where am I?"

The previously skeptical soldier told her – "You're in Atlantis."

Tara - "Didn't that sink?"

Someone yelling from the gate control room – "We've got wraith incoming!"

Everyone went from casual to alert and some people hurried off to get to places they needed to be.

One of the guards – "We should get you somewhere safer."

Tara, looking down at the axe in her hands - "Wait. I think there's something I'm supposed to do here."

Tara could feel another trance coming on and didn't fight it as she started walking up the stairs to the gate control room. She didn't make it all the way up as she stopped in front of a large tall window.

In front of her, a large podium rose out of the floor while the stake on her Scythe splintered and fell off as a large metal spike telescoped out to replace it. She still was still conscious as her body moved on its own and slotted the metal spike into a hole in the podium.

Another guard – "What the hell is she doing?"

The walls in front of her split and folded away, exposing her to open air. The walls kept folding away, opening up a panoramic view of Atlantis and alarming some of those standing near the suddenly disappearing walls. The tower above her separated into two parts and slid down the sides until there was now nothing above them either.

Then a blue spherical force field sprung up with all sorts of undoubtedly important read outs etched on it in a brighter white. The room shook slightly then rose up, as if it was in an elevator.

Throughout the rest of Atlantis, several other towers were undergoing similar changes, revealing large, long, shiny tubes hidden within. Everyone in the large gate room found themselves passive observers, marveling in the changes going on around them.

John Shepard - "Why is Atlantis suddenly a transformer? If it turns into giant Cadillac, I'm checking myself into medical."

Elizabeth Weir, looking at the shiny metal tubes - "What do you think those are for?"

Rodney McKay - "This is only a guess but they look like weapons."

The barrels tilted towards the middle of Atlantis, towards the large platform they were all standing on. From this new angle, it was obvious that they had large holes at the end, making them look like giant cannons.

The giant cannons fired bright laser death directly at the gate room.

The intensely bright lasers struck the force field that surrounded them and caused it to glow white. The glow faded after a few seconds and the large barrels started hiding themselves back into their respective towers.

Shepard - "What? That's it?"

McKay - "I don't think so."

There was a spot at the top of the force field that was still glowing and growing in intensity even as it grew smaller. Then there was a small thud sound, along with a bright flash and the force field disappeared. They were lifted downwards and the tower reassembled itself back to its original setting.

Someone in the gate control room - "All hive ships have been destroyed and... our zero point modules have been recharged."

McKay - "What!? How?"

Shepard, pointing to Tara - "Umm. Magic?"

Tara pulled her bright red axe out of the podium. The podium sunk back into the ground and the metal spike telescoped back into her scythe.

Tara, looking wiped - "That was weird."

Then she fainted. Luckily for her, one of the guards caught her before she fell down the stairs.

O-O-O-O

Present time.

O'Neil, thinking they're joking – "Come on. You're making this up."

Shepard – "If I was, I'd have a leading role in that story."

McKay, with obvious excitement - "I always thought the power tolerances of Atlantis didn't make sense. Even with a full set of zero point modules, it can still handle five times that much power. I thought it may have been some sort of surge protection but this makes more sense. This changes everything."

O'Neil – "Enough techno jargon. I get it. You put that axe in a hole and you've got a big gun."

Shepard – "Actually, it only works for Tara."

Tara shrugged and grimaced at the same time, not really wanting this responsibility.

McKay – "Also, Atlantis was designed to have the option of going much faster than normal in FTL travel when it's got an abundance of zero point modules charged. Not only that but a lot of its systems are now working when they weren't before. The drone production facility is in full swing and so are a lot of other things we don't even know about yet. With Tara's help, we probably have the most powerful force of destruction in the universe."

VampWillow - "Or in the twin universes."

McKay – "Huh?"

VampWillow, awkwardly – "Uh, you know that scifi show, Lexx? I am the Lexx, the most powerful weapon of destruction in the twin universes…. I'll shut up now."

HumanWillow – "We've got that here too."

McKay – "Oh. Is it good?"

HumanWillow, nodding in a so-so – "It's okay."

O'Neil – "So we need Tara to make this thing work properly?"

McKay – "Sort of, yeah."

Tara – "I get it. I can't really say no to this, can I? I'll stay on Atlantis so you can shoot your big laser of doom at things."

O'Neil, frowning – "I was going to ask politely."

VampWillow – "With this thing in orbit, I doubt you'll have a problem with grand scale warfare."

SuckBuffy, pouting – "How come we don't have spaceships?"

VampWillow, considering this – "Actually, it's weird that they have spaceships. Only one other world seems to deal with aliens and they don't have any."

Xander – "We're the only world with spaceships?"

SuckBuffy – "As far as we know."

Xander – "That is so cool!"

Xander held his hand up to his Willow for a high five and after a few seconds she awkward slapped it.

Afterwards, Xander frowned.

Xander – "Uh, I never used to do that, did I?"

Willow – "No. Must be more Faith rubbing off on you."

Xander – "Sorry. I'll try to not do that in the future."

HumanBuffy – "I haven't seen Faith do that much either."

SuckBuffy – "Same."

HumanBuffy – "Please tell me you don't have Dawn rubbing off on you now. That's a little more than I can handle."

McKay – "So, you alternates probably want to know about dimensional travel, right? I heard as much earlier."

SuckBuffy – "We've got this magic stone circle thing we use but it's not the best system. It's the best we have right now."

McKay – "Well, there's this technology we like to call the mirror gates that -"

O'Neil – "They already know about it. But we've only got one in our dimension and we don't know how make more of them yet."

McKay, triumphantly – "Ah-ha! But we don't need to make anymore."

Shepard – "We don't?"

McKay, frowning – "You don't remember me telling you about this?"

Shepard – "No."

McKay, a little angry at Shepard – "I spent all lunch telling you about this. Merlin's big mirror gate. Ringing any bells?"

Shepard – "Refresh my memory."

McKay, back to talking to everyone – "Okay. Merlin, that guy who lived in Atlantis a while back and made a lot of interesting gadgets. He was working a mirror gate large enough for Atlantis to move through."

Both Buffys – "What?"

McKay – "That's right. It was originally designed to be an escape plan for the ancients when the wraith attacked. But there were power problems –"

Both Buffys – "Wait."

SuckBuffy to her twin – "You go."

HumanBuffy – "Okay. What are wraith?"

Shepard – "They're the guys we're fighting in the Pegasus galaxy. They're not that nice. They treat human like cattle and feed off them."

All the Scoobies frowned, except Tara who already knew about them.

HumanBuffy – "They're like vampires?"

McKay – "Pretty much. They're super strong and they live forever. They heal fast too."

HumanBuffy – "And there's a galaxy full of these guys?"

SuckBuffy – "Suddenly I've got this urge go to this Pegasus galaxy and kill a bunch of these guys."

HumanBuffy, grinning at her twin – "Me too. Must be those slayer instincts."

SuckBuffy, grinning back – "I like those instincts, they're fun."

McKay, trying to ignore the Buffys – "Sooo, as I was saying. They couldn't use the mirror gates because of power problems. With a stargate, the power needed to use it is relative to the area squared. With a mirror-gate, it's more like to the power of eight. There's also the problem of power maintenance. You can't just put power in slowly. There's a power maintenance system tied into it that actually uses power. Think of it like a force field that contains power. As power increases, you need to increase the force field's power to maintain the power that the force field was created for. It's a recursive problem."

O'Neil - "Can you speed this up a little? I have places to be."

McKay - "To use the mirror gate, you need to put in a lot of power in really quickly or it won't work and you would've just wasted a whole mess of power."

Shepard - "Would Tara work?"

McKay – "Just like told you at lunch, yes, we believe Tara would work just fine. With Tara, we can move Atlantis through to other dimensions. Most of the files on the mirror gates are still encrypted so we can't figure out how to make more mirror gates. But with that big mirror gate, we won't need to."

Shepard – "Because we can use Atlantis as a troop transport. I remember now. It's coming back to me."

SuckBuffy – "Seriously? So we could stick an army on this spaceship of yours and move it to any dimension we want?"

McKay – "More or less. There's only the problem of getting Atlantis to the mirror gate. It's back in the Pegasus galaxy. But with Atlantis working at full capacity and with Tara's help, that should only take less than a week."

SuckBuffy – "Oh. Well, that's still a better plan than anything we've got. We wanna hit them hard and fast, not with a trickle of troops."

Shepard, grinning – "Then you've come to the right spaceship."

O-O-O-O

Back in the Pegasus galaxy.

A wraith queen was smiling ever so slightly as she sat on her throne reading an electronic report on the large holographic screen in front of her.

One of her wraith servants – "Your mysterious benefactor has called again."

Wraith queen – "I shall take this call in private. Leave! All of you!"

As her royal guard left, she found her hands shaking and clutched them together to stop that. Then she pressed a few small buttons on her throne and the call was routed straight to her.

An almost impossible low, grating drone – "I take it you have recovered the zero point modules I directed you towards."

His voice seemed to bore into her brain, even through the subspace communication relay and she took several seconds to recover before replying.

Wraith Queen – "Yes, master. They were exactly where you said they would be and most of them were almost completely full. I have already installed one into my hive ship."

The low voice, almost grumbling - "I told you. Call me mister Shadow."

Wraith Queen, submissively – "Yes, mister Shadow. Whatever you say, mister Shadow. What would you have of me?"

Mister Shadow – "I have an offer for you."

Wraith Queen – "An offer. How generous. What is it?"

Mister Shadow – "You can have Atlantis. All I ask for in return is Earth."

The Queen considered this. She knew Earth was a planet with billions of humans living on it. It would be a prize of almost unlimited potential. But going against this Mister Shadow wasn't something she was comfortable with. She wasn't even sure she was capable of it.

On the other hand, she'd be getting Atlantis! She would be able to defeat any rival wraith faction with ease once she refueled it with one or two of her spare zero point modules.

Once she had Atlantis, she could always backstab Mister Shadow and take earth anyway.

Wraith Queen, with a small grin – "That sounds fair."

O-O-O-O

A few hours later.

Within a surprisingly short amount of time, a large amount of SGC personnel and a much larger amount of candyvamps were piling onto Atlantis. But since it was a small city, they weren't going to run out of room any time soon despite the candyvamps literally coming in by the truck load.

Amanda, not that convincingly - "Come on, you apes. You want to live forever?"

A whiny vamp - "Yes! I do want to live forever."

Amanda – "I don't care! Move it! I don't want to be here all night! Move!"

The candyvamps weren't being extremely cooperative tonight, not liking the idea of going to war. But they seemed at least a little happier about it when they saw Atlantis and realized they were going to be given some military grade weaponry. Though, the vampires weren't the only ones with reservations.

Human Willow – "But Buffy. Spaceships are dangerous. There's all sorts of things that can go wrong. Like near luminal velocity micrometeorites. She could be alive one second and dead the next."

Buffy - "I'm sure the Ancients would have figured out some defense against that happening. Also, I bet this thing has force fields… and phasers."

Willow winced - "Urm, Buffy. It doesn't have phasers. That's star trek."

Buffy, pouting – "I'm pretty sure I remember someone saying something about phasers earlier. Doesn't matter. This spaceship is like a giant flying space tank. It's built to last."

Willow, still wincing - "I know. It's just…"

Buffy – "You don't have to explain. Regardless of what your relationship with Tara is, you obviously care for her a great deal. But you don't have to worry. If I understand what some people have told me, Tara's the most important person on Atlantis. Without her, they can't power this thing properly. They'll make sure nothing happens to her. And if you're worried about war, this place will probably be the safest place in the universe. I doubt the bad guys have anything like it."

Amy - "Yeah, Willow. Besides, we'll take good care of her."

Willow, surprised at seeing Amy - "Amy?"

Willow hadn't noticed Amy standing behind her all this time. But then, Amy had camouflaged herself exceedingly well by wearing a stargate control uniform.

Buffy - "Amy? What are you doing here?"

Amy - "Oh, I forgot to tell you, didn't I? I got a job here."

Buffy - "Really? Doing what?"

Amy - "I'm a consultant on magic stuff."

Buffy – "That makes some sense."

Amy, to Willow – "I'll keep an eye on Tara for you. I'm sure Giles and Harmony will too."

Willow – "What? They're going too?"

Buffy – "I thought I mentioned that earlier. Oops."

Willow – "Who else is going?"

Buffy – " Amanda girl. You know, the one who's supposed to be a slayer. Some of the found boys are going too. But no one else I think you'd know."

Twist – "I know I'm not going. This place gives me the creeps."

Buffy spun around and glared at him for a second.

Buffy – "Okay. If anyone else wants to surprise us, now's the time? Twist, how did you get here? I thought you were in LA."

Twist – "Business ended abruptly. As to how I got here, you probably don't want to know."

Betsy, from behind Willow – "I believe this Atlantis would be a fitting throne for me. Don't you think?"

Buffy – "Ahh. Betsy."

Twist – "She's playing. Honestly. She doesn't really want this place as a throne."

Betsy, smirking – "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not."

Buffy – "This might be a personal question and I'm sorry if it is but exactly what sort of demon are you again?"

Betsy, to Twist – "You told her I'm a demon?"

Willow – "You're not?"

Betsy – "I prefer the term goddess."

Buffy – "Seriously?"

Twist – "She is a creature of impeccable breeding."

This seemed to please Betsy and she gave Twist a coy smile of approval.

Betsy – "Demigod is perhaps more fitting. But even that's more god than most people."

Twist – "She has some Djinni and demon god in her too. It's quite an amalgamation when you think about it. But she is mostly god and that makes her prone to the occasional megalomaniac fantasy."

Buffy – "Wasn't Glorificus a god too?"

Betsy snorted – "Demon god. I've met her. Pathetic. I did like her minions though. I've always wanted some minions like that but none of the other gods will tell me how to get them."

Twist – "I'm sort of your minion."

Betsy, cupping his face – "Aww. That's so sweet but you're more than just a minion to me, Twist."

Then she kissed him with a little tongue. Then a lot more tongue. Buffy actually felt a bit ill and had to look away after a few seconds while Amy kept staring.

Amy, finding that a little funny – "That's some quite technique you've got there. Looks like fun."

Betsy, beaming a big smile – "Thanks and yes, its great fun. Twist is the second best kisser I've ever met."

Twist, wincing – "The first being that god of corruption you had a summer thing with, we know."

Betsy, as if telling them a secret – "The god of corruption has two tongues. You wouldn't believe the things he could do with them."

Willow, horrified – "Two tongues?"

Amy – "I think the question everyone wants to know is did he have two heads or two tongues in the same mouth?"

Betsy – "It depended on what mood he was in. But that wasn't the only thing he had two of, if you catch my drift."

By the look on Amy's face, this was as far as Amy wanted to go in that direction.

Amy – "I see."

Betsy, gushing with praise of her exploits – "Let me tell you, it was absolutely exquisite."

Buffy slowly drifted away from that conversation, not wanting to seem rude until she got an acceptable distance away. Then she just turned around and kept walking.

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else, somewhere badly lit and nondescript.

A single light shone down on a vampire hanging in mid air by chains. He was being suspended over a chalk circle with Nordic looking runes scrawled around the outside.

The vampire – "Guys. This isn't funny anymore."

In the darkness, he managed to see the dark, amorphous shape of a hooded creature float in his direction. He could make out some hints of anatomy and the fact that they had humanlike hands but couldn't see into the darkness of the hood despite being a vampire.

But he realized he was feeling their presence more than seeing them.

Vampire, scared – "Who are you?"

The cloaked figure didn't reply. They just slowly reached out with a grime covered hand. When one of their fingers touched the vampire, it burst into a roaring, white hot furnace of burning flesh.

The fire didn't burn out as fast as it arrived however. Instead, the fire condensed and formed a very small glowing yellow sphere that floated in mid air.

The dark entity's hood seemed to tilt as it coldly analyzed the glowing yellow ball. Then they ever so gently held the ball between a finger and thumb and leant in to get a closer look at it.

Mr Shadow - "What is this doing in a vampire? Mmmm. Chaos magic. They should know better than to play with fire."

O-O-O-O

Back on Atlantis.

The candy vamps were busy settling in while some of the human newcomers watched the take off sequence in a soon to be sun filled observation lounge.

Amy, to Tara – "I've heard it's beautiful."

Tara – "Like you wouldn't believe."

Harmony, grinning brightly – "Then I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Tara – "Harmony! You can't be here!"

Giles – "It's okay. We know about the sun."

Tara – "Then what is she doing here?"

Harmony held up an S shaped silver jewel encrusted medallion. It was a bit too large to be elegant.

Harmony, as if telling a secret – "Ssh. This lets vampires walk in sunlight."

Amy – "Really?"

Harmony – "Yup. Though the others slayers don't need gaudy neckwear."

Giles – "They have some sort of tattoo that does the same thing. Apparently, it's a slayer secret as to how they work."

Harmony – "But they're totally nice. They even said they'd give me one of those tattoos later. Though, I'm still not sure I want one. Don't they use needles or something? The slayer girls are over there in case you want to ask them about it."

Tara and Amy realized that there were eight or so girls chatting incessantly by the guard rail. They seemed quite excited to be in a space ship.

Then the propulsion drives cut in with a slight hum and the earth groaned as Atlantis lifted off, leaving behind a large starfish like impression. They seemed to float up slowly but in reality, they were already going several at hundred miles an hour. A translucent blue force field flowed around Atlantis, acting as defense and a cloaking field to make them invisible to both radar and the naked eye.

The drives hummed again as they came under more strain and the earth seemed to fall away under their feet. Thanks to some miracle of inertial dampening, they felt this even less than they would notice the rise of an elevator. Then Atlantis tilted slightly in flight and they could see just how far they had traveled.

They saw the earth as a backlit and slowly shrinking ball with the sun peaking out from one side.

Then the sun flared as it came into view and flooded the room with brilliant light. Harmony gasped and held up her hands as if to catch something thrown her way. Not really knowing what she was doing, she slowly turned her hands around and felt the light play between her fingers.

Harmony, with a tear rolling down one cheek – "Whoa."

Giles, gently – "Harmony?"

Harmony – "I'm okay. It's just… beautiful."

Then the outside scene blurred and the universe around them seemed to turn into streaking blue fire.

Harmony – "Hey! What happened? What's that?"

Amy – "I think that's the hyper drive system. Right now, we're going faster than the speed of light. Neat, right?"

Harmony, pouting – "No! It's not neat. They took away my sun."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else on Atlantis, away from the sun.

A team of star gate personnel were familiarizing the lion's share of candyvamps on the weapons they would issued to fight the face eater threat.

They had automatic shotguns, disposable rockets, sophisticated missile systems, heavy machineguns and even some exotic energy weapons. They also brought along a large helping of explosives for good measure.

Right now, the candyvamps were being instructed on the shotguns before moving on to the weapons of mass destruction.

SGC instructor, holding up two shotgun shells – "The red cartridge is an explosive armor piercing round. It explodes on impact to drive a tungsten alloy shell into the target. These are what we will be using in our shotguns most of the time. We also have the blue cartridge which fires a high explosive grenade. The HE grenade will pulverize soft tissue. Just so you know, you guys are soft tissue."

A low slow thump pulsed through the room, sounding remarkably like a heartbeat. The only effect it had was the candyvamps falling to their knees and stumbling over while everyone else just watched.

A second thump pulsed again and the vampires screamed and roared, causing the room to suddenly become very loud.

The thump pulsed one more time and the candyvamps all had their gamefaces on.

The SGC instructor loaded an HE grenade shell into the shotgun he was instructing with as he realized that all the candyvamps had glowing yellow eyes.

Some candyvamps pounced at him.

He fired his shotgun.

He missed.

O-O-O-O

In the gate room.

The candyvamps attacked with their eyes still glowing yellow.

The human guards had fired but were easily overwhelmed.

The gate room shook as an ammo dump in a nearby tower exploded. This caused giant electrical arcs to tear up and down the area and let loose a violent cascade of explosive decompression throughout the city.

It was stopped by the sheer bulk of safety features to stop such an occurrence but the damage was catastrophic. Non-vital systems across Atlantis shut down in an automated attempt to fight the ensuing thermal runaway effect. The hyperdrive shut down immediately, dumping them into normal space. The protective force field that shields Atlantis against both physical attack and prying eyes shut down too.

Also, the lights went out.

The vampires ran through the dark with impunity. Slashing, gutting and drinking anyone they wanted.

Soon, the gunfire had died off and their eyes stopped glowing in the dark.

Then the lights turned back on and all Tara saw were bloodied vampires and even bloodier corpses.

In the darkness, she had lost the scythe and with the lights back on she saw a vampire holding it aloft. Tara recognized him as Cletus. But he didn't look as cowed as she last saw him. In fact, despite the controlled burst of gunfire that he caught in the face, he seemed more eager than ever.

Cletus – "We're back!"

The vampires howled, hollered and cheered.

Cletus – "And this facility is under our control now! Who wants to blow up a planet?"

By the many cheers and cries of "Hell yeah!" Tara guessed they all did.

Cletus, looking Tara up and down – "But first, why don't we have some fun?"

Tara backed up, really not wanting to die. But she only backed up into the clutches of two big vampire guys who held her roughly.

Coco, a smoking hot black chick, stopped Cletus before he could harm Tara.

Coco – "Whoa there, big boy. We don't want to hurt the witch."

Cletus – "Fuck you. I'm in charge!"

Candy, an equally hot strawberry blonde – "She's right. Only she can use the Scythe."

This finally stopped Cletus and he squinted at Coco and Candy who seemed to know something he didn't.

Coco – "Vampires can't use that thing. You need to be able to do human magic. Trust me, I'd know."

Candy, nodding in agreement – "She would know."

Cletus – "If we can't use it, we should break it so no one else can."

Candy, with a smile – "Easy there. We've still got Tara. She can use it for us."

Tara, trying to be brave – "I won't."

Candy, smiling deviously – "Oh, you will. By the time we're done with you, you'll be powerless to resist."

Tara – "I don't care if you torture me. I won't let you use Atlantis."

Coco, gently cupping Tara's chin – "Torture? Baby. No one said anything about torture. Everyone knows you catch more bees with honey than vinegar."

Candy - "It's so much more fun to corrupt them when they're cute and innocent like her."

Tara, as the two vampire girls started smiling sexily at her – "Uh, whoa, wait. You can't be serious."

Coco laughing - "Don't worry, honey buns. It's not wrong if the vampire loves you."

Candy, to Cletus - "I think the human wants some privacy. We'll take her somewhere more comfortable."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	60. 18b Resistance

Episode 18, chapter B : Resistance.

Authors note – What am I doing to poor Tara? I like to call it character development… or group sex. Both fit.

O-O-O-O

An armored humvee barreled towards Buffy and bumped around erratically with the rough terrain. The vampire manning the machine gun port on top figured out how to shoot the large gun and started letting loose with gusto.

Bullets screamed past Buffy's ears and splattered into the dirt around her as she threw her stake. The stake whistled as it spun and hit the machine gunner dead in the heart, dusting them.

Then she dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the wide vehicle as it sped past.

All around her, the world had gone crazy. The candy vamps were no longer. They had become their former evil selves except now they had immediate access to military weaponry which they were taking clear advantage of.

Buffy, on the other hand, had only brought along two stakes and a small but sharp gold and silver knife which Twist had sworn was blessed by none other than Gregory the great, whoever that was. Since she had just thrown away one stake that meant she had one stake left and a letter opener of untested quality.

More bullets flew past her and Buffy kept low but scampered sideways, trying to pinpoint where they were coming from. She saw a whole platoon full of vampires carrying various automatic weapons, running her way and shooting from the hip.

Some random vampire - "Kill that bitch! Kill the slayer!"

The humvee had turned around and was already lining her up for another attack when a large fireball dropped out of the sky and blew the humvee into burning chunks of metal. Another fireball flew towards the squad of vampires chasing Buffy and although it only hit one, it knocked the others down. Some of the vampires caught fire too.

Betsy – "Buffy! Over here!"

Buffy was conflicted to say the least but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth when she saw that Betsy was the one throwing the fireballs.

More machinegun fire flew past Buffy and then a glassy looking force field sprung up around her. Bullets thudded against it without effect and even the loud gunfire was muffled.

Betsy, inside the force field with Buffy – "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Buffy blinked at Betsy. She seemed genuinely concerned.

Buffy – "I'm okay. Uh, thanks."

Once Betsy realized Buffy was okay, she sighed with relief and put a smirk on.

Betsy – "Forget about it. What would you mortals do without me around? So what's going on?"

Buffy – "The candy vamps have gone insane."

Betsy – "You don't say."

A rocket thudded against the force field and very obvious fractures crept along its surface. Betsy squinted with concentration and the fractures seemed to melt. Then another rocket hit and Betsy grunted with frustration.

Betsy, holding Buffy by the arm – "They really don't like you. We need to get you out of here."

Buffy's world flashed red and she was assaulted by a sudden rush of warmth and brightness. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden sunlight, she realized that they were in a desert oasis. There a large water fountain, a small flock of goats, healthily large date palms and what looked like a small stone ziggurat.

Betsy gave the stunned Buffy a bright smile as she led her up the small flight of stairs to the stone house at the top of the ziggurat.

Betsy – "I hope you're honored. I don't bring just anyone here."

Buffy – "Where did you teleport us?"

Betsy – "My home away from home."

Betsy led Buffy through some silk curtains and into the indoor temple. There were cushions scattered around the place and sunlight gently filtered into the room through small holes in the stone roof. Compared to the heat outside, it was almost cold in this room.

Betsy – "I'll put some tea on. Take a seat."

Buffy did as she was told and frowned.

Betsy, as she prepared a kettle – "I like to come here when the world gets a little too much for me."

Buffy – "Uh, Betsy. I don't think this is the time for tea."

Betsy, sounding almost motherly – "I know how you slayers think. If I take you back there, you'll just get yourself killed and that won't help anyone."

Buffy, standing up – "But other people are already dying."

Betsy frowned and put down the kettle to confront Buffy.

Betsy – "If you try to leave, the desert will kill you. You don't even know what desert it is, do you?"

Buffy, sternly – "Take me back, now. This isn't funny."

Betsy – "I… can't."

Buffy, getting a little angry – "Yes, you can. You took me here. Now just take me back."

Betsy looked like she wanted to say something but couldn't. Buffy's anger slowly subsided as she saw the confliction in Betsy's eyes.

Then Betsy kissed her with all the fervor a teenybopper could muster. Buffy didn't see this coming but her slayer side went absolutely nuts at this and launched Betsy across the room. Buffy stumbled backwards onto some cushions as her body tried to expel something from itself that definitely wasn't natural.

Her mouth felt numb and tingly at the same time and she could feel something squirming under her skin. After a handful of seconds, she felt it die and fade away but it left her lightheaded.

Betsy groaned and slowly got up, slightly concussed.

Buffy – "What the hell was that?"

Betsy, confused as she held her sore head – "What was what?"

Buffy – "When you kissed me, what did you do?"

Betsy, smirking weakly – "Oh, you've never been kissed by a goddess before, have you?"

Buffy – "That felt weird. I didn't like it. Why did you do that?"

Betsy, frowning – "You didn't like it? Strange. I thought I was a good kisser."

Buffy – "Betsy, answers. Now."

Betsy sighed and sat down on some pillows and seemed to consider her words before speaking.

Betsy – "I guess there's no way around it. Buffy, I like you."

Buffy looked like she was going to say something but hesitated. Then almost said something else and hesitated once more.

Buffy – "You mean… you like me in that way?"

Betsy, a little embarrassed but not painfully so – "Yes. In that way. I want us to get naked then squish and rub my body against yours."

Buffy – "Oh, uh, this is awkward."

Betsy – "I realize that I'm not much to look at but trust me, it's not my outside that matters. I can do things to you that you don't even have words for. Once you've tried a god, you don't go back."

Buffy realized what she had to do and she really hated herself for it.

Buffy, speaking slowly and a little sexily – "So, you like me, huh? That's interesting and perhaps a little exciting."

Betsy, blinking in surprise – "Really?"

Buffy – "Oh sure. You are a goddess after all. But there's this one thing. Right now, ALL MY FRIENDS COULD BE DYING! Take me back now!"

This broke Betsy out of her spell and frowned at Buffy.

Betsy – "If I take you back, you could die."

Buffy – "And if you don't take me back, I know I'll hate you for the rest of my life."

Betsy – "Yes, you'll hate me. For a while at least. But then I'll start to grow on you."

Buffy, getting in Betsy's face – "I'd kill myself before that happens. You can't bring people back from the dead, can you?"

Betsy, with some worry – "Uh. No. I'm not that sort of god."

Buffy – "Then I guess you'll have to take me back and you can take your chances like everyone else. And if you ever try this again, that's it. You won't even stand a chance with me."

Betsy considered this under the sweltering glare of Buffy and it looked like she caved in.

Betsy – "Okay! You win. I hope you know I was just trying to save your life."

Buffy – "Let's talk about this later. Now… can you take me home first? I think this is situation demands my fancy bow."

Betsy, holding Buffy by the arm – "Fine."

O-O-O-O

Less than a minute later.

Buffy and Betsy appeared back at the military maneuvers site with a bright fiery red flash. They found themselves surrounded by SGC soldiers who all pointed weapons at them but didn't fire when they realized who they were.

It seemed that the action was already over and Buffy lowered her fancy composite bow.

O'Neil – "Nice entrance."

Buffy – "O'Neil? What happened?"

Faith, in the distance – "Buffy? Hey! Buffy!"

Buffy, as Faith ran over – "Hey Faith."

Faith – "Damn, B. Where'd you go? You okay?"

Buffy – "Things got a little hairy and Betsy took me away for a while."

Faith – "Betsy? Really?"

Betsy smirked at Faith, which Faith wasn't sure she liked.

Buffy – "So what happened?"

Faith, before O'Neil could explain – "We were dealing with the vamps okay but then these choppers came in and blew them away like it was nothing. It was fricken awesome. You should've seen it. But B, we've got bigger problems."

Buffy – "You mean besides the vampires going back to normal?"

O'Neil – "It's worse than that. It didn't just happen here. It happened with all the vampires you've been dosing. There's a vampire riot going on in Sunnydale right now and LA is having problems too."

Faith – "Yeah, those vampires are pissed. I've never seen them so out for blood before."

O'Neil – "They're frisky alright. But that's not the worst of it. On Atlantis, vampires outnumbered humans three to one. We've got to expect that Atlantis is under vampire control now."

Buffy – "Oh crap."

O'Neil – "I couldn't have said it better myself."

Buffy frowned in thought then turned to Betsy.

Buffy – "I don't suppose you can teleport to Atlantis?"

Betsy blinked at Buffy – "What? No. That's in space!"

Buffy – "What's the difference?"

Betsy – "Space is all… sciencey. I'm more magicky."

O'Neil – "Sure. I'll buy that."

O-O-O-O

Quite some time later.

Atlantis was adrift somewhere on the edge of the Pegasus galaxy. The fighting was mostly over although every now and then, the survivors would hear gunfire sound off but it rarely lasted very long. The individual pockets of resistance were blocked off from each other by blockages, broken door mechanisms and even the vacuum of space itself.

Somewhere in the base of Atlantis, the largest pocket of human survivors were trying their best to get a handle on the situation.

A girl was fresh claw marks across her game face paced around, still in a rage.

Scar faced girl - "I can't believe this. Our team has been together for over two hundred years and we almost got taken down by a bunch of vampires. Stupid fricken -"

John Shepard, trying to clear a blockage – "Hey, stop complaining and give us some help here."

The blockage consisted of a bunch of spare architectural parts which had collapsed when a wall was broken open.

The scar faced slayer walked up to the blockage and kicked at it, launching a thick post so hard it dented a wall on the other side like a battering ram.

John Shepard – "That's not what I meant. We don't want to cause any more damage. This place is coming apart as it is."

Scar faced slayer, still angry – "Sorry. I'm just so pissed."

Shepard – "Maybe you should take some time out. We don't you tired out if we run into more trouble."

The scar faced slayer knew he was right but she really didn't like it.

Scar faced slayer – "Fine. I'll take a breather."

She stomped off and Harmony seemed to take her place as the troublesome slayer.

Harmony – "I can help you with the blockage."

Shepard, with a sigh – "Are you sure?"

Harmony – "Yes. I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

Shepard – "I don't know. I just thought, well, you know. You were taking that candy stuff, weren't you? I saw your eyes glow yellow just like the rest of them."

Harmony – "I remember. My head felt it was going to explode. Then all my friends started killing everyone. That wasn't nice. But I'm okay now and I guess I really am a Slayer because I want you to live more than I want to kill you. So can I help now?"

Shepard – "Be my guest."

Zelenka, a Czech physicist, wandered up the hallway full of people with a small binder which he was penning notes in.

Shepard, seeing Zelenka – "Zelenka. Status report?"

Zelenka, reading from the binder – "Forty seven able men. Another sixteen injured. We've got three of those slayer girls able and three more that are too wounded to help. One of them was shot in the head badly but her fellows swear she will live through it. Though they are telling us that they're running out of blood. They're giving most of it to their wounded and to the blonde, Harmony. I'm told…"

Zelenka stood a little closer to Shepard, so Harmony wouldn't overhear.

Zelenka, whispering – "I'm told Harmony might become a problem if she gets too hungry. Something about her being her being younger than the others."

Shepard, with a frown – "Duly noted. What about Atlantis?"

Zelenka - "One of the main power couplings has been destroyed. Systems are down all over the ship. Faster than light is down. Fortunately life support is still operational in most of the ship. But beyond that, don't expect anything to work."

Shepard, nodding – "Okay. Now tell me something, Zelenka. Why are our radios down? They're not part of Atlantis."

Zelenka, somewhat dismissively - "That's just high voltage arc discharge. Acts as a radio jammer."

Shepard – "Can we do anything about it?"

Zelenka – "Not without a space suit, no. That entire section is exposed to space."

Shepard – "Can't we reroute the power or something?"

Zelenka – "No. It's one of the main power couplings. They can't be rerouted. Unless you do it manually."

Shepard – "That's something we don't need. What about more survivors? Have they found any more on the other end?"

Zelenka, leaning in to whisper again – "The slayer down there is proving very useful. Her hearing is very astute. She can literally hear people through walls. She can even tell if someone is a human or vampire."

Harmony, turning away from the blockage to chat – "Hey yeah, I can do that too. It's neat."

Shepard – "You heard that?"

Harmony, grinning widely – "Yeah. I did. And don't worry. I'm sure I won't be a problem if I get too hungry. I know how to behave myself."

Shepard, turning to Zelenka – "Is that all?"

Zelenka – "Uhh. Mostly. It's just… the section McKay was in. It seems it … it's not there any longer."

Shepard, narrowing his eyes – "What do you mean it's not there?"

Zelenka – "Part of the superstructure gave way and it broke free. It's no longer there anymore."

Shepard – "Damnit, McKay!"

O-O-O-O

McKay gasped as he woke up and heard a girl talk in a pained voice.

The girl he couldn't see - "Tighter. Tighter still. Just do it as tight as you can!"

McKay really didn't feel like moving, so he just stared up at the ceiling as his mind flashed back to the recent events.

There was an explosion. It shook through Atlantis with incredible force and ruptured a distant wall in the engineering bay. Everyone ran out as the atmosphere started whistling through the cracks that started streaking along the walls.

They managed to get out as the doors automatically sealed closed to protect against full vacuum. But by the loud groaning sounds that pierced to the bone, Atlantis hadn't finished falling apart just yet. Others were already running deeper into the city and McKay followed them.

That was when he heard gunfire, first faraway and then much closer.

It became utter chaos as they were fired upon. McKay went down with the first barrage, half his body went numb as at least one armor piercing round shot through him.

He saw feet running past him as he lay on the ground and heard screaming, lots of screaming mixed with insane terrible laughter.

He laid there as the world around him slowly faded darker and the pain and misery around him felt like it was on some other world.

He felt a kind of peace until everything got a little confusing.

He checked his hands and they both seemed to be working. Then he gently checked himself for wounds and frowned when he couldn't find any.

Then he very slowly sat up and stared at a scene out of a horror movie.

Dead stargate personnel were strewn across the hallway he found himself in. Blood was smeared across the walls in splash marks and handprints.

He turned to find the source of the voices he heard and saw two girls. One of the girls was tightly wrapping splints onto the other girl's leg.

He recognized the one with the splinted leg as a slayer from another dimension. He didn't know her name but she seemed nice enough. She was tall and athletic, with a bob of brown hair and milky white skin that seemed quite common amongst vampires.

But the other girl was…

He didn't know where he knew her from but she felt important to him somehow. Like family.

The slayer winced as she put a little weight on her leg but nodded to Amanda.

Slayer - "I need a proper cast but this should do for now. Hey, your baby's awake."

Amanda, to McKay – "Oh, uh. Hi."

Then Amanda turned back to the other girl with an imploring look.

Amanda – "I've never turned anyone before. What do I do?"

The older looking girl smiled and started limping over to McKay.

Older girl – "Don't worry. As slayers, we usually call our children toys. Because they're mostly harmless. I doubt he'll hurt you."

Amanda, inching closer to McKay– "Easy. Easy. You've had an accident."

McKay's face was conflicted as he looked at Amanda. He had warm, fluffy feelings towards her but couldn't quite remember where he got them from. It was as if she was the sister he never had.

Although, he did have a sister so maybe that was the wrong phrase.

McKay, a bit panicky – "I think I need a doctor. I think I was shot. And I think I might have a concussion."

The slayer – "I think you're a bit beyond a doctor now."

McKay – "What you mean?"

Amanda – "You sort of died. I umm… You might not remember it. You were kind of out of it. But I turned you."

McKay, seemingly okay with that – "Oh. Uh. Huh. This isn't how I thought it would be."

Amanda – "You think about being a vampire a lot?"

McKay, getting up onto his feet – "I think about a lot of things a lot. Uhh. Uh-oh."

Amanda – "What?"

McKay – "I'm really hungry. I'm not going to turn into a ravenous monster and bite people in the neck, am I?"

The slayer – "I'm guessing no. You're not."

Amanda – "If you're going to do that, try one of these dead people first. I don't think they'll mind."

The slayer – "So what's your name?"

McKay – "McKay. Rodney McKay."

Slayer – "Congratulations, Amanda. You now have your very own Rodney McKay."

Amanda frowned at the older girl then turned back to McKay.

Amanda – "I'm Amanda and I guess now I'm in charge of you. So you do everything I say, alright? And, uh, don't bite people or I'll be, umm, angry."

McKay frowned while the other slayer laughed.

The other slayer – "And I'm Sunday. Nice to meet you."

McKay – "I know I'm new to this vampire thing. But why me? Why did you do this to me?"

Amanda – "Well, you were dying. It seemed like a good idea. We can use all the help we can get right now."

Sunday – "I would've done it myself but my leg is kinda broken and I didn't want to move too much."

McKay – "Okay. I was dying. But everyone else here was obviously dying too."

Sunday – "You were in the process of dying for quite a while. Everyone else here just died a whole lot quicker. You're lucky, I guess."

Amanda - "You were only shot. The rest of these guys are a real mess. Some of them are in bits."

McKay, not feeling lucky – "Oh."

Amanda – "Can you help us get out of here? We're stuck. All the doors are shut and won't open."

McKay getting to his feet – "Sure. I can even show you how to do it yourself. But what if we run into more of those vampires?"

Sunday – "Even with a broken leg, I think we can take them."

O-O-O-O

Shiva was not her given name but no one seemed to care.

Shiva was a puppy dog cute slayer from Bangladesh with bright blue streaks running through her pitch black ponytails. Unlike most of the other slayers, Shiva didn't even try to look adult. She seemed to be much more comfortable with the illusion of being a bubbly teen.

Right now, that illusion wasn't comforting anyone as Shiva tapped her knuckles against a bulkhead and frowned.

Shiva – "Yup, that's vacuum."

Zelenka – "Are you sure?"

Shiva – "Yes, I'm sure. You know what would be really useful right now? Some space suits. I can't believe we're on a spaceship that doesn't have any spacesuits."

Zelenka – "Just a thought. You don't need a spacesuit."

Shiva – "Why wouldn't I?"

Zelenka – "From what I've read about vampires, they don't need to breathe."

Shiva – "I'm not going out there! I'd explode."

Zelenka - "No, that's an urban myth. Just close your eyes and push all the air out of your lungs and you should be fine. Though there might be some bleeding involved. I wish Doctor Beckett was here. He would know more about this."

Shiva frowned and looked out a window to see if there was even any use to going outside into space.

Shiva – "Hey science guy. Can you tell me what that is?"

Zelenka, more interested in looking at his notes – "What what is?"

Shiva – "That big purple thing outside."

Zelenka – "I assure you, whatever it is, it doesn't… oh no."

Zelenka stared at the big purple thing and Shiva caught a fresh whiff of fear coming off the scientist.

Shiva – "So this is bad?"

Zelenka – "What are they doing out here? We're not even in their part of the galaxy."

Shiva – "Who are they?"

Zelenka – "Wraith. That's a wraith ship."

O-O-O-O

McKay hummed the A-team theme song as he worked on rewiring a door, not exactly filling Amanda with confidence.

McKay – "And through here should be the puddle jumper bay."

Amanda – "What's a puddle jumper?"

McKay – "They're small space ships."

Sunday – "We don't need space ships. We need some proper wood. All I've found so far are these twiggy little pot plants. They're no good for stakes at all. Or we could find a kitchen and get some knives. Or a broom closet. How do you guys keep this place clean?"

McKay, as the door opened – "Actually, a puddle jumper is just what we need right now."

All three of them walked into the puddle jumper bay. It was spacious and held a dozen or so puddle jumpers.

Amanda, cringing – "Oh man, those things are ugly."

McKay, as if explaining to a child – "They're designed specifically to fit through a star gate."

Amanda – "Well yeah but look at it! It looks like a flying pile of dung."

Sunday – "She's right. They're absolutely tasteless."

McKay pushed a button on the back of a puddle jumper and it's backdoor opened up.

McKay, walking into the puddle jumper – "So, how's this for a plan? We fly a puddle jumper around Atlantis and shoot out all the windows which have vampires in?"

Sunday, following him along with Amanda - "Are you sure that's a good idea? Atlantis is broken enough already. There might still be people alive."

McKay, sitting down in the pilots seat – "When we went on this mission, the SGC was given strict instructions that the vampires cannot, under any circumstances, gain control of Atlantis. And I agree with them. The last thing we need is them spreading to other planets….. umm… maybe this one is broken."

Amanda – "Don't you need a key or something? Or push a button at least?"

McKay – "No, puddle jumpers have an advanced security system. Only certain people who have a certain gene can activate them. I have that gene and… Oh. Oh, that's something I didn't think of."

McKay put two fingers up to his neck and stood up, a little freaked – "I don't have a pulse!"

Amanda – "You're not getting over being a vampire anytime soon, are you?"

McKay, somewhat alarmed – "I can't use a puddle jumper if I don't have a pulse! Oh, uh, actually, that's a good thing. Oh yes. That's excellent. The security systems won't even acknowledge our existence as life forms. That means a lot of the systems in Atlantis won't work for the vampires. Puddle jumpers won't work for them and neither will the drone launchers. They won't even be able to fly Atlantis anywhere. Oh, that's such a relief."

Sunday – "It is?"

McKay – "Yes, it is. It means we don't have to destroy Atlantis if it's overrun by vampires."

Sunday – "But if it is overrun by vampires, we would still be stuck on it. Since we need someone alive to drive it?"

McKay – "Yes, that about sums it up."

Sunday – "Hold that thought. I don't think we're alone."

It was then that the backdoor to the puddle jumper opened up. At the back weren't vampires at all but heavily built wraith warriors, all pointing stun rifles at them.

Sunday and Amanda rushed forwards but when the wraith let loose with their guns, the puddle jumper became filled with blue sparkly ionized air which turned numbed the vampires wherever they were struck.

Unlike bullets, these weapons really did slow vampires down.

Sunday, looking up at them from the floor - "What the hell are -"

She was cut off when one of the wraith shot her in the head.

McKay – "Nonono, wait! You don't understand."

Then they did the same to him.

O-O-O-O

Elsewhere. Somewhere dark.

Tara couldn't see properly by the weak star light floating in through the windows.

But she could feel everything.

She was being ever so gently bitten by both of the vampire girls who kidnapped her. Every touch, every lick, every slap and caress felt better than the last.

As her blood got thinner, she could feel the part of her still resisting getting smaller

Then the door to their room opened and a ratty looking vampire guy walked in.

Vampire – "Bring the girl. We've got trouble."

Candy – "Can't you see we're busy here!?"

Vampire – "And you've been so busy that you haven't noticed the giant fricken alien spaceship outside."

Coco and Candy gave each other looks of confusion.

Coco – "Are you still eating that chocolate?"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	61. 18c Solace in strangers

Episode 18, chapter C : Solace in strangers.

O-O-O-O

Amanda woke up in a wraith prison cell. She had already woken up a few times in transit and gotten shot in the head by stun rifles for her efforts.

She had a splitting headache which Sunday and McKay didn't seem to share.

McKay actually seemed quite content to stare at a wall.

McKay – "So, this vampire thing. Is it like an infection?"

Sunday – "What?"

McKay – "Is vampirism an infection?"

Sunday – "I don't know. Maybe. I haven't heard anything like that about it. I thought it was magical."

McKay, raising a skeptical eyebrow at Sunday – "Magic? Really?"

Sunday – "What? Magic exists."

McKay, not a believer – "Uh huh. I'm sure it does. Well, I'm betting vampirism is an infection."

Sunday – "Fine. Whatever."

McKay - "Umm, so how do you get those sharp teeth to come out?"

Amanda – "Just get angry."

McKay tried this and frowned. He was having a hard time doing that.

Sunday – "Or think of a really hot girl."

McKay – "What? Really?"

Amanda – "She's joking. That wouldn't work."

Sunday – "It would unless he's gay. Then he'd have to think of a hot guy."

Amanda – "I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that."

Sunday, tweaking Amanda on the nose – "There's two reasons vampires bring out their fangs, youngster. One is for blood and one is for fun."

McKay, as his game face turned on – "Ow! That sort of hurts."

Sunday, grinning – "You get use to it. So which worked for you? Girls or boys?"

McKay turned back to the wall and didn't reply as he experimentally tried biting the wall.

Amanda – "Rodney, what are you doing?"

McKay – "I'm just trying something. So, to turn someone, you bite them then inject some of your blood into them, right?"

Amanda – "Uh, yes. That's right."

The two slayers saw him biting his own wrist then getting somewhat intimate with the wall again.

Then he stood back and his gameface melted away.

McKay – "Ugh, this wall tastes horrible."

Amanda – "What were you doing?"

McKay – "These spaceships are genetically engineered life forms. I was just wondering what would happen if I turned one."

Sunday laughed – "They have to die before you can turn them, silly."

Then they noticed the wall McKay had bitten was slowly turning from purple blue to dark green. The greenness seemed to spread quite fast through the small veins in the wall.

McKay – "Are you sure about that?"

Sunday, mildly surprised – "Huh."

A small contingent of wraith appeared by the web like gate which kept them locked inside the cell. Showing they weren't entirely stupid or forgetful, they aimed their weapons and shot Amanda and Sunday more times than necessary for a normal human. Only then did they open the door and yank McKay out.

He struggled but it was to little avail.

McKay, as he was frog marched away – "So much for vampires being super strong."

When he stopped struggling they pushed him forwards and let him walk under his own power. They kept pushing him through the cramped corridors of the wraith vessel towards the control bridge.

McKay - "How come we never get abducted by hot sexy dominatrix aliens? Just once I'd like that to - Oh. Hello."

McKay found himself strangely happy at the sight of the Wraith Queen and was a little concerned by that and tried to fathom why. Normally he'd need a change of pants by now.

Before the Queen got to deal with McKay, another wraith talked to her with a very worried look on his face.

Worried wraith – "Your majesty, this vessel has just started showing some very unusual chemical activity. It's too early to tell but it doesn't seem to be caused by the extra power from the zero point modules."

The Queen – "Go fix it."

Worried wraith – "I will but I think we should perhaps land somewhere first. The rate of this … anomalous activity is alarming. It's obviously systemic and it's getting worse very quickly."

Queen – "Do not think you can give me orders. Go fix it. I have a prisoner to interrogate."

The worried wraith walked off, mumbling things to himself and the Queen turned to McKay with a haughty smile which McKay actually found sort of sexy. McKay made a mental note of that and he realized that he wasn't really scared at all. There was no blinding panic, no lead weight at the bottom of his stomach and his heart definitely wasn't trying to beat its way out of his chest.

He found the very idea exhilarating.

Queen, as McKay was brought forth – "Kneel."

There was a pause while the Queen tried to overwhelm his mind with hers. McKay could feel her influence over him like a silk sheet sliding against his skin. It felt kind of nice but wasn't going to force him to do anything.

Queen, a little less sure of herself – "Kneel?"

McKay, smirking – "I don't think that's going to work."

A look of revulsion and horror crossed the Queen's face but was quickly replaced with burning anger as she planted her hand on McKay's chest to feed off him. That anger was also quickly replaced with a blank look as the Queen tried to figure out what she was doing wrong.

McKay, on the other hand, felt a rush of hunger flow through him and his game face turned on. He kissed the queen and his instincts told him go a bit lower. Without a second thought, he found himself biting her in the neck. His instincts took full reign and his mind took a back seat in some warm, sticky part of his head.

When he got his senses back, he dropped the queen and she fell to the ground, obviously dead.

He spun around, ready to get attacked by the other wraiths but realized that they were dead too.

In their place stood Amanda and Sunday.

Amanda – "Did you feed off THAT?"

Sunday – "Weird. Now let's get out of here."

McKay, wiping the blue wraith blood off his chin – "Huh? What? How did you get out of the cell?"

Amanda – "We faked being unconscious. When they took you away, we broke through the gate."

Sunday – "Whatever you did to that wall weakened the gate and I think it's spreading through the entire ship."

McKay – "Really? Oh, that's not good. We should go."

Sunday – "Yes! We should go! So how we get off this thing?"

McKay, picking up a stun pistol off the ground – "Follow me."

The trio left in a hurry, none of them noticing that the queen had started twitching on the floor as her skin started bubbling and turning green.

McKay was shot by a stun rifle in the knee. He stumbled to the ground while Amanda and Sunday fired back with their own stun rifles.

Amanda, helping McKay back to his feet – "Which way?"

McKay, pointing – "That way. To the hanger bay."

McKay did his best to walk off his numb leg and it was working surprisingly well. So far being a vampire was only helping him.

Then he heard a loud, unnatural roar ripple through the ship. Whatever made that was obviously pissed off.

McKay – "What the hell was what?"

Sunday, laying down some fire as they kept running – "Don't know, don't care. Let's get out of here."

Some more wraiths appeared in front of them. There was a short exchange of fire which ended with the wraith going down and the vampires just getting pins and needles.

They stepped over the unconscious bodies and ran into the hanger bay, which seemed to be melting in parts. Giant globs of green bubbling goo was dripping and trailing off the ceiling, coating many of the wraith spacecraft present. Some of the spaceships seemed to be effected too, melting on their own.

McKay – "Whoa. That doesn't look good."

Amanda – "It's not normally like that?"

McKay – "No, it isn't."

Sunday – "Hello! We're running for our lives here!"

That got the younger vampires moving and McKay ran over to a wraith dart. It was a small attack vessel, big enough for one. He did this because couldn't find anything bigger that wasn't already covered in green melting spaceship.

Amanda and Sunday did their best to squeeze into the cockpit with him with mixed results.

McKay – "They're not really designed for more than one person."

Sunday – "Too bad! We need to go now!"

One of them nudged a button and the cockpit canopy slid down, squishing them even closer together. McKay tried not to think too much about which girly parts were being squished into his face and focused on getting them out of there.

Amanda – "I guess it's a good thing we don't have to breathe anymore."

O-O-O-O

In the Atlantis gateroom.

Cletus – "We need you to shoot the ship."

Tara, looking half asleep - "I-I can't. All the weapons are down."

Cletus slapped her, knocking her over and causing Coco and Candy to growl.

Coco, checking Tara – "Don't do that again. Humans are fragile, remember. And we need this girl alive if we want to get out of here."

Cletus – "Don't tell me how to run my ship."

A vampire behind Cletus, looking through a window – "Uh, Cletus?"

Cletus, turning around to face them – "What?"

The vampire looking through a window – "There's another ship coming."

Cletus took a glance out the window and then did a double take.

He didn't move out of the way fast enough and a wraith dart hit him spike first in the chest as it flew through the window.

Stone like plate slid down immediately over the broken windows to stop the atmosphere from venting completely.

Everyone in the room stared at the wraith dart that had now impaled itself in the gate room wall, point first. It had also skewered Cletus through the chest.

While everyone watched, Cletus dusted.

Then the dart's canopy folded away and two slayers fell out quite a height but landed with apparent ease on the gate room floor.

Candy – "Oh crap! Slayers! Kill them!"

McKay – "Catch!"

He dropped a stun pistol over the side. Amanda caught it then went about shooting for the eyes of the vampires swarming towards them.

Sunday let her gameface slide on and her perfectly manicured nails turned into razor sharp talons. She stepped in front of Amanda to protect the younger and weaker slayer against what might be an unavoidable death. Because of her broken leg, she wasn't quite as mobile as she would normally be. But she wasn't going to go down easy.

Then she saw lines of stargate personnel in game face, aiming guns at her from the second floor balconies and she realized she might go down easier than she first thought.

"NOW!"

Gunfire erupted and Sunday knocked Amanda to the ground, to shield her from the guns.

Windows shattered, sucking the occasional vampire out before being covered again by much more resilient stone like metal plates.

Vampires all around the room howled in pain and confusion as they came under fire themselves.

When Sunday realized that no one was really shooting in her direction, she got back onto her feet and went about attacking whoever she could get her hands on.

As the vampires started running back up the stairs to the second level, Amanda found that shooting them with her stun pistol had the comical effect of making them fall back down, often taking those around them with them.

Grenades exploded on the balconies above, knocking vampires off them and collapsing one of the walkways. Vampires spilled down from the broken walkways and several of them ran off instead of facing true resistance.

In the middle of the action, another wraith dart broke through another set of windows and embedded itself into the conference room.

Left and right, vampires were turning to dust as they were being torn apart by explosives and mushrooming rounds. Not only that but the vampires were running out of ammunition.

In the middle of the room, Sunday and Amanda were making quite a mess on their own. Amanda shot anyone who shot her way while Sunday was literally tearing the heads off the vampires in front of her.

On top of the steps, Candy grabbed Tara from behind and bit her in the throat, causing Tara to yelp a little but she was beyond struggling anymore.

Before Candy thought it was possible, Sunday grabbed her around the neck with both hands and clenched. Her eyes snapped open as she felt the vertebrae in her neck separate then fracture and finally give way. She dusted, letting Tara fall freely. Sunday caught her and pressed a hand to the back of Tara's neck to stop the bleeding.

One of the vampires – "We surrender! Stop shooting!"

Sunday looked up from Tara and frowned. It had been a while since she had seen vampires surrendering in large numbers.

They made a show of throwing their weapons aside. Sunday had Amanda take care of Tara and picked up the Scythe that was laying down on the ground next to her.

She realized that there were only a small handful of vampires left, maybe seven or eight. All of them were former stargate personnel who had been turned since the chocolate stopped working.

Shiva and Shepard walked forwards. Shepard had a heavy machine gun while Shiva was wielding a longbow that she brought along on the trip and obviously had gotten from her quarters.

Shepard – "Down! On the ground! Face down, arms behind your head. Now!"

The vampires all did this and they all looked really scared while they did it.

One of the vampires on the ground – "Shepard, the wraith ship outside. It's going to ram us!"

Shepard – "What?"

Other soldiers ran along the walkway and covered the slayers as they secured the vampires.

One of the security guards looked through one of the few remaining unclosed windows.

Security guard – "They're right. That hive ship is coming right for us. Their ship is falling apart though. I don't think they're going very fast"

Shepard, to Sunday and Amanda – "Hey, you two! You better not have hurt Tara or you just killed us all."

Shiva – "Don't shoot them, they're slayers, like me."

Tara, forcing herself up – "I can do this. I can save us. I need the scythe."

Amanda kept pressure on her bite wound while both of the girls kept Tara upright.

Tara took a few seconds to focus herself then willed the scythe to take her over.

The podium rose out of the floor in front of her and she set the scythe into it. The scythe repeated what it told her when the vampires forced her to use it.

They had no weapons.

Tara pushed back with the desire to protect this city floating in space.

Electric arcs jumped across the gaps between buildings as Tara willed more power into the city. The connections were broken so she would just have to jump them.

She had to protect this city.

Tara herself started glowing slightly and something in Atlantis roared to attention.

Outside, the pitch black space was smothered by a white hot curtain that rolled upwards and surrounded the city.

Outside, the wraith hive ship sped towards the erratic and badly tuned force field that had erected around Atlantis.

A few minutes earlier, the hive ship might have been able to avoid its fate but now, it was little more than a large hunk of half melted space debris.

It struck the force field and splattered then exploded as the failing reactors inside struck the force field and ruptured.

The force field rippled with the force of the explosion but held itself in place if only by Tara's sheer will.

The force field faded and the stargate soldiers realized that they had been saved. The hive ship was nothing to worry about anymore.

One of the vampires on the ground realized this too.

With his hands still held behind his back by plastic cord, he hopped to his feet and managed to shoulder barge his way between some guards. They were quick to react after that, turning and firing full auto bursts into his retreating form. They got at least a few good shots in the upper torso but they didn't stop him.

The giant green alien who shot a tentacle through his forehead was what stopped him.

One of the guards, seeing the green alien - "What the hell is that?"

The giant green alien bared its jagged teeth at the guards and held out its hands towards them. From the palm of each hand, two rather long tentacles whipped about. Both the tentacles had drill like teeth on the end.

The same guard - "No, seriously, what the hell is that!?"

The alien roared and charged while the guards let loose with their guns. Everyone else on the scene turned to this new threat and let loose too.

The guns didn't seem to be killing it but the withering barrage was making it reconsider it's life choices.

Then Shiva shot it in what she hoped was the heart with her long bow and it exploded into dust.

The same guard – "Okay. Does anyone know what the hell that was?"

McKay, still in the wraith dart – "Oh, right. I think that was my fault."

Shepard – "McKay?! We thought you were dead."

McKay – "Yeah, well, you know me. Can someone get me down from here? I'm really high up."

Sunday – "Forget him! We need a medic here. Tara's out cold."

O-O-O-O

Major Jack O'Neil tapped his fingers against his desk in irritation.

The part he most hated about his job was waiting while others were so busy doing things he felt he should be doing too. But he knew he had to stay in his office in case a very important call came.

Then his desk intercom crackled and he found himself hoping for the best.

Male voice on the intercom – "Sir, we're picking up an encrypted subspace transmission. Routing it to your office."

O'Neil, speaking into the intercom – "Thanks."

The massive plasma screen on the wall flickered to life and a blurry, static filled image became clearer as the improvised subspace transmission they had set up was tuned properly.

John Shepard, looking away from the camera to argue with someone else – "I'm telling you, it's not working!"

O'Neil – "Hello!"

Shepard's head spun back with surprise which quickly turned to relief.

Shepard - "O'Neil! I am so glad to see your face. Hold on, before we do anything, I was told to do this."

Shepard held up a little silver cross.

O'Neil grinned and picked a cross off his desk too. Neither of them seemed to be getting burnt from this action and put the crosses away.

O'Neil – "Now that's over with, I take it everyone's not dead over there."

Shepard – "Not everyone, no. But we've lost a lot of good men. O'Neil, the vampires went crazy."

O'Neil – "We know, the same thing happened here. I'm told that, and I can't believe I'm saying this, someone cast a magic spell which caused the vampires to revert back to their evil natures."

Shepard – "That's what the slayers figured. I've got to tell you, if it weren't for those slayers, we would probably all be dead now. Bringing them along was the smartest move we ever made."

O'Neil – "After seeing them in action down here, I think I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. So how bad is it over there? Is Weir okay?"

Shepard smiled slightly – "Weir is still alive. She got stuck in a malfunctioning teleporter with Teyla. Everyone else wasn't so lucky though. When the vampires turned on us, someone set off an ammo dump. Both McKay and Zelenka believe that caused one of our liquid naqahdah reactors to go Chernobyl. It tore one of the towers in half and the shockwave caused half of everything else to breakdown at the same time. It's estimated that only around sixty five percent of the human staff are still alive. Almost all of the gateroom were turned into those vampires. A few of them surrendered when they saw the wraith hive ship but –"

O'Neil – "Wraith hive ship?"

Shepard – "It's not as bas as it sounds. That sort of worked itself out. Also, now we know what happens if a vampire turns a wraith. It's not pretty. Talking of which, McKay got himself turned by one of the slayers."

O'Neil – "What?"

Shepard – "I know. What goes on in that head of his? Before we can get Atlantis working again, we need some supplies. We need lots of electrical wiring and coils and transformers and things like that. Oh, and I know it's a weird thing to ask. But could you send some wooden stakes too? We're all out."

O'Neil – "I'll see what I can do."

Shepard – "We're sending our grocery list to you now. Some spacesuits would be nice too-"

The subspace connection was lost abruptly and O'Neil frowned at the screen.

O'Neil, into his intercom – "Did we get an electronic message from the Atlantis expedition?"

Intercom voice – "Yes sir. Should we go about acquiring this list?"

O'Neil – "We should. Put wooden stakes and space suits on the end of it."

There was a pause.

Intercom – "Uh, yes sir."

O-O-O-O

Back in Sunnydale.

The echo version of Faith and the human version of Buffy faced off against each other with their arms crossed. They were standing outside a large set of factory doors in the industrial sector along with Jokes tac team from the vamp verse. Kennedy and Spike were there too and both of them were getting hit on by Fox.

DemonFaith – "It's been a while, B."

HumanBuffy – "It has."

DemonFaith – "The last time we did something like this was way back before the mayor."

HumanBuffy – "I remember. Good times. But you know this is going to be bigger than that. You ready for it?"

DemonFaith – "You're asking me that? B, please. You know I'm ready. Ready for this and more."

Kendra – "Buffy, maybe it would be better if we went in first."

HumanBuffy – "Hey, it's my dimension. This one is mine."

DemonFaith – "Come on, let's get this party started. The vamps are getting stake happy too."

HumanBuffy – "On three. One, two, THREE!"

Buffy and Faith kicked open the twin metal doors into the chocolate factory and found it filled to the rafters with vampires in full game face.

Buffy, her eyes sparkling with excitement – "It's the dustbin for you, my pretties!"

"SLAYERS! GET THEM!"

Faith – "HELL YEAH! LET'S GET OUR SLAY ON!"

In the year or so since the vampcandy had been introduced, the vampire population had actually increased dramatically in the state of California. Normally, the more pathetic and antisocial vampires would be killed off for fun by demons or even other vampires. But instead, these were spared the perils of Darwinian evolution and were welcomed into the blossoming vampire communities that slowly replaced the more cannibalistic vampire gangs.

Of course, the growth rate was stifled considerably since the candy vamps no longer had a predilection towards creating more children of the night but then most vampire hunters learned that there wasn't much point in slaying them either. There were better things to do with their time.

Even though the vampires were back to "normal", it should be noted that the social structures were still in place. Instead of just having gangs of vampires, now there were small armies of them.

Because of this and since there wasn't much else going on in the way of fighting, Queen Buffy, ruler of the undercity, had decided to send all her available tac teams to Sunnydale, to help fight the vampire uprising. It was all very hush hush. Even the SGC didn't know of their involvement in local matters yet.

Now back to action.

Buffy staked a vampire then twirled her stake for kicks as she scanned for more vampires.

The only vampires she saw were ones she wasn't supposed to stake.

Buffy – "Wait, what? Is that it?"

Faith, frowning – "Yeah. I think it is. Weren't there like two hundred or something when we walked in?"

One of the slayers they had forgotten the name of – "Two hundred and fifty seven. I counted. That's only like thirteen each."

Buffy, considering this – "I got six in the initial rush, then three when they started running, two on the stairs, three on the top level."

Buddy – "And four more when you jumped back down with that awesome backflip move. That was probably the most awesome thing I've ever seen in my life."

FutureBuffy – "Where would you even learn that? I sure as hell can't do that."

Buffy – "Oh, you know. Around. Then I staked that last one and… that was it. Huh. I got nineteen. That shouldn't have been that easy."

Faith – "I got nineteen too! We're on fire tonight!"

Spike – "I only got eight."

Kennedy – "Nine."

Fox – "Eleven. Now let's have sex!"

Buddy, frowning at Fox – "You know that never works."

Fox, pouting – "It sometimes works."

Faith – "And I thought I had a one track mind."

Buffy – "You do."

Faith – "Yeah but his track is bigger."

Joke, her normal emotionless self – "Let's move on people. We've got a job to do. Buffy wants Sunnydale spotless by sunrise and we're only on our second warehouse."

O-O-O-O

On Atlantis, after the last pockets of vampires had been weeded out and the last survivors were found, everything settled down rather quickly. The medical staff had their hands full with priority cases so the rest patched themselves up as best they could. Most of the SGC personnel had at least basic first aid training while some were even more qualified.

Three of the slayers and some guards were doing a thorough sweep throughout the entirety of Atlantis but they would be doing that for days, searching for hiding vampires.

In the meantime John Shepard, Rodney Mackay, Ronon Dex and Amanda were at a table. Mackay and Amanda had cups of what looked like blood and didn't look too happy about it.

Ronon – "That is disgusting."

McKay – "You don't have to tell me."

Amanda – "I'm really tempted to go back to the chocolate now."

Ronon – "Just so we're clear. McKay isn't going to try and bite me?"

Amanda – "Sunday told me to treat him like a cat. He won't bite unless you give him a reason to."

Ronon – "Hmm. So, Rodney, how are you handling being medically dead?"

McKay – "Well, my allergies have all disappeared. So that's great. Hang on, where were you when everything happened anyway?"

Ronon – "I was taking a walk. Then everything started falling apart and I was stuck by myself with all these vampires trying to kill me."

Amanda – "You were by yourself? You're a big guy but how did you survive?"

Ronon quick drew his blaster to show Amanda how he survived.

Amanda - "Is that like a laser gun or something?"

Ronon - "Something like that."

Amanda – "Can I have one?"

McKay, smiling at his sire – "I asked the exact same thing."

Ronon – "I thought the whole city was going to fall apart. What happened?"

McKay – "Well, Atlantis hasn't seen much in the way of maintenance since its automatic repair systems went off line tens of thousands of years ago. If you ask me, I think they did a really job building it considering that it's still around."

Shepard – "Will we need those automatic repair systems back up to fly this crate again?"

McKay – "No. The damage is bad but it should still fly when we fix the power. It might be hard to believe but most of the main systems are still intact."

Shepard – "That's good to know."

Then Shepard cringed as Amanda tried drank some more blood.

Amanda, with a shiver – "Ugh. I'll never get used to this."

McKay – "I know what you mean. Wraith is so much better."

Amanda – "Really? What do they taste like?"

McKay – "Would you believe blue jello?"

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else in the city.

Harmony looked at the chocolate in her hands and looked back at Giles with tears in her eyes.

Harmony, talking fast – "I broke into the magic box and stole that unicorn off you."

Giles, blinking at her – "That was you?"

Harmony, putting the chocolate down – "I was evil. But I'm not now. Not entirely. I can probably pay you back after this. That is, if I'm getting paid."

Giles – "You don't have to bother."

Harmony – "I.. Giles, I don't want to go back to eating that chocolate. I think I can do more without it. It was keeping me stupid. I –"

Giles, smiling slightly – "I understand."

Harmony – "I'm not the same."

Giles – "And I said I understand. You don't need me anymore either."

Harmony – "It's not that I don't appreciate you. But… yeah. I think we had some good times."

Giles – "I'll always have fond memories."

Harmony – "Like that time when we tried tying me to the bed and I broke it."

Giles – "Yes, that was quite memorable."

Harmony – "Then there was the time I tied you to the bed."

Giles, laughing a little – "Don't remind me."

Harmony, after biting her lip gently – "There's really no reason why we still can't have sex. I mean, I don't have a schoolgirl crush on you anymore but we worked well together."

Giles – "Perhaps. But maybe we should give you some time to get settled first."

Harmony – "Yeah, maybe later."

There was another awkward pause which Harmony really felt shouldn't be there after all the sex they've had together.

Harmony – "You know, I think I'll get another room, give you some space."

Giles – "Or I could get another room."

Harmony – "No-no. I'll move. It's the least I can do. You've got bruised ribs. You shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting. And I've already packed my suitcase."

Harmony tilted her suitcase and started wheeling it out.

Giles – "Harmony."

Harmony stopped halfway through the door and turned back to him.

Giles – "It was a great midlife crisis while it lasted."

Harmony, smiled a little sadly – "It was the best. See you around, Rupert. You be good."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	62. 18d Fine young cannibals

Episode 18, chapter D : Fine young cannibals

O-O-O-O

Three days later, in the Atlantis sickbay.

Sunday was sitting on a bed with Dr Jennifer Keller extracting a bullet from her back but the good doctor stopped when Sunday hissed with pain.

Dr Jennifer Keller – "This is stupid. You need some anesthetic."

Sunday – "No, I really don't. My pain threshold is really high. It's so high in fact, I'm not really feeling it as pain. It's actually sort of nice."

Keller, frowning – "Seriously?"

Sunday – "Yeah. As long as you keep doing it gently, you won't hurt me."

Keller – "This is one of those vampire things, isn't it?"

Sunday – "It can work for some humans too."

Keller – "That would explain why Shiva asked me out on a date after I pulled a bullet out of her liver. I thought that was weird at the time."

Sunday – "Well, there's that and also you're really hot too."

Keller blushed with embarrassment which made Sunday smirk.

Keller – "I should get back to work."

Sunday, suggestively – "Yeah, you work it girl."

Keller, laughing – "Stop it already. I'm trying to operate here."

Keller leaned over again and extracted the bullet which had really dug itself into Sundays back. Since the slayers weren't considered priority cases, they were given enough time for the skin to seal over some of their bullet wounds. This meant reopening the old wounds back up and in some cases, making new openings that didn't exist beforehand.

Keller, looking at the bullet – "I'm surprised you don't already have a medic in your team. Aren't you slayers supposed to be hundreds of years old? You should have picked up a few skills in that time."

Sunday – "Actually, we had two medics. One was killed. The other is over there with the head wound. And we can't find their field kits either."

Keller looked up from the bullet and remembered "stabilizing" the slayer who'd had magazines full of bullets shot into her at near point blank range. Her arm was torn off and her head was practically a stump. Not only was she braindead but she was missing over half of her brain mass. At the insistence of the other slayers, Keller had wrapped what was rest of the head in gauze and put an intravenous drip in her arm which supplied her with fresh blood. Much to her surprise, the heavily damaged corpse was already showing signs of growing back bone and sinew.

Sunday – "Also, I'm only twenty three. Unless you count the four centuries I spent asleep but I don't."

Keller activated an electronic full body scan of Sunday and didn't find any more bullets to worry about.

Keller – "That seems to be it."

Sunday, disappointed – "Already? But I was just starting to have fun."

Sunday dangled her legs over the side of the operating table and grinned when Keller rolled her eyes. Sunday's broken leg had a cast on it from the knee downwards.

Sunday – "So Doc, you blew off Shiva but how about me?"

Keller, a little uncertain – "How about you?"

Sunday – "Come on. I know you're interested. I can tell. You're also a little scared. But you really have nothing to be scared of with me."

Keller blinked at Sunday and shook her head.

Keller – "You've totally got the wrong idea."

Sunday, gently pulling Keller closer – "Do I?"

Keller admitted to herself that she was a little interested in the beautiful young girl in front of her, if only in a medical sense.

Sunday, perhaps lying – "I'll be gentle."

Then Dr Beckett and John Shepard walked in, chatting to themselves and breaking the mood.

Sunday, with a wink – "You know where my room is."

Sunday hopped off the table and walked away, leaving Dr Keller with something to think about.

Dr Beckett, with a Scottish accent – "Jennifer? Are you okay?"

Keller – "Uh, yeah. Fine. Just have a lot on my mind. I take it you want to see Tara?"

Shepard – "That's why I'm here."

Both doctors walked to the other end of the sickbay where they presented Tara to Shepard.

Shepard – "She's still asleep?"

Beckett – "I believe coma might be a better term but it's a mystery to me what's causing it. The damage to her neck was quite bad, as was the blood loss but I believe we got to her in time."

Keller, indicating a laptop by Tara's bed – "The interesting part is her brainwaves. We've never seen anything like them."

Shepard studied Tara's brainwaves on the laptop.

Shepard – "What am I looking at?"

Keller, pointing some spikes on the brainwave graph – "See these spikes?"

Shepard – "Yeah."

Keller – "Notice how they're really big? How they go off the chart?"

Shepard – "That's important?"

Keller – "Uh, well, yes. They're not supposed to go off the chart."

Beckett, explaining further – "The human brain should not be able to produce those voltages, even if she was awake. I can't say what the significance of this is. But then, I don't understand Tara's connection with that axe of hers either. I'm guessing it's related."

Shepard – "Okay. Any indication of when she'd wake up?"

Beckett, shaking his head – "Sorry. None at all."

Shepard – "Well. Crap."

O-O-O-O

Shepard walked into the zero point module power room to find McKay and Amanda each with a laptop. They weren't working however but playing some sort of first person shooter.

Shepard hemmed and the two vampires had the decency to look guilty and ashamed.

Shepard – "So how's it going?"

McKay, quitting from that game very quickly – "Uh, good. Power is back on. Shields and stealth are operational. Warp drive is on, though, you would know that since we've been using it. We've got a few new things back online too such as the drone production facility that we never knew we had. We can even reprogram it to mass produce a wide variety of other useful things too. Rockets, grenades, handguns, maybe ipods and things like that. Some important redundancies are offline though. We don't really need them but they wouldn't hurt if we ever have another explosion."

Shepard – "I'm asking about the mirror gate."

McKay – "Oh that. Yeah, there's no way we can siphon power quickly enough from the zed-PMs. It's not going to happen."

Shepard – "Well, find a way. It's what you do."

McKay – "While I might be brilliant, this problem is beyond me."

Shepard, trying a different tactic – "I never thought I'd hear that from the great Rodney McKay."

McKay – "That won't work this time. We need Tara. There's no way around it."

Shepard – "That could be a problem. She's in a coma."

McKay – "That's not good. You might want to check in with Zelenka then. He's analyzing that scythe with some of the slayers. Maybe they've found some way to get it working."

Shepard – "Here's hoping they're having some luck then."

O-O-O-O

Elizabeth Weir, the civilian in charge of Atlantis, was already talking to Zelenka.

Zelenka – "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. As far as every piece of equipment tells me it is only a large piece of metal."

Amy – "While every piece of equipment I have tells me it's very magical."

Weir, to Amy – "Can you make this work then?"

Amy – "I'm not sure. You see, this scythe, it's unusual. It can be modified to do different things. Or rather, to work for different people. I've been going over Tara's notes on how she attuned the Scythe to herself and I think I might be able to make it work for myself. But I'm not sure what that would do to her."

Weir – "What do you mean?"

Amy – "What Tara can do with this scythe, I've never seen anything like it before. I've never even heard of a human doing that before. Plenty of gods would have problems doing that. That suggests she has a deep connection to this scythe. If I try to retune it, I'll have to break that connection first. That could kill her."

Weir – "I'd rather not do that. Though, from what I've been told, we are on a timetable here."

One of the slayers in the room – "If Tara does die, we can totally turn her. She won't have a pulse but I think she'd prefer that to dying."

Weir thought about this for a moment then turned to Amy.

Weir – "Set it up. We've sat here long enough."

O-O-O-O

Fifteen minutes later.

Amy was sitting down on a cushion in front of a velvet covered box on which the scythe was laid. Candles lined the room and a slayer stood in the corner.

But she wasn't doing a spell just yet.

Amy, to the Slayer – "I'm ready. Now leave. The spell shouldn't take long. Half an hour max."

Slayer, leaving – "Don't push yourself too hard. That spell is dangerous."

Amy – "Thanks for your concern."

The slayer left, shutting the door behind her and leaving Amy alone.

O-O-O-O

Back at the sickbay, Dr Beckett, Dr Keller, Shiva, Harmony and Giles were waiting around Tara's unconscious form. Sheppard walked in.

Sheppard – "They're doing the spell now."

Everyone was surprised as Tara's back arched and her face contorted in pain.

The two doctors held her down along with the help of Shiva.

Harmony – "What's happening?"

Beckett – "I have no idea but we should strap her down."

Keller, looking at the laptop which was monitoring Tara's vitals – "Everything's has gone through the roof. We need to – "

Keller stopped talking as a bright blue electric arc jumped off Tara and struck her in the arm. She fell to the ground and stayed there.

Beckett, alarmed but on the other side of the table – "Jennifer?"

Keller, a little stunned and still lying on the ground – "What was that?"

Shiva, to Harmony – "Help us hold her down."

Then an arc jumped off Tara and hit Shiva in the face, causing the small girl to grimace in pain and mumble something in Indian.

Shiva – "What is that?"

Both Giles and Harmony helped hold down Tara as she continued to give each of them little shocks. Before they got used to the excitement, it stopped abruptly.

So did Tara's heart.

Shiva took that as a sign to ready her world's secret recipe for turning the recently dead people into vampires. It was in the form of a dark red liquid in a hypodermic needle.

Beckett – "Hold off on that for a second and some one help Jennifer up."

Beckett opened one of Tara's eyes and flashed a light in it. Then he opened up her mouth and checked for blockages. Then he started CPR by blowing some air into her lungs.

Beckett – "She's just stopped breathing. That's all. Jennifer, the paddles."

Jennifer, still on the floor – "I can't do it. My arm's gone numb."

Harmony handed the defibrillator paddles to Dr Beckett as he tore open Tara's shirt. He then took the paddled, pressed them on both sides of her chest and gave her a burst of electricity.

Then, much to some people's surprise, her heart monitor started beating again. It faltered a little at first but returned to a normal and full heartbeat surprisingly fast.

Beckett, with a smile – "There we go."

Shiva looked a bit disappointed and put her hypodermic needle away.

Beckett – "Jennifer, are you okay?"

Jennifer, still on the floor – "I think so. Feelings coming back. I'll just sit down here for a minute."

Giles – "I believe this means Amy was successful. I'm glad it didn't mean Tara's death. She really is a dear."

Harmony – "Yeah. Though, I bet she would've been a great vampire."

O-O-O-O

In the gateroom.

Amy practice-swung the scythe.

Weir – "Can you not do that?"

Amy – "Sorry. It's just I feel this weird connection with this thing. I wanna cut things in half with it."

Weir – "I think there are better uses for it than that."

Amy, with a slightly mad grin – "Hey yeah! That sounds like fun. A whole space city under my power. Let's do that."

Amy walked over to the top of the stairs and the Scythe's podium rose up out of the floor to meet her. She slotted it in and gasped as she felt immense power flow through her.

Amy, her eyes glowing electric blue – "This is a trip."

McKay – "Somehow Atlantis is supposed to interact with the mirror gate. I'm not sure how but it –"

Amy – "Shut it! I know how."

The walls folded away, exposing the room to deep space. The only thing that stopped them from suffocating was a force field that had sprung up around the gate room beforehand.

Floating in front of Atlantis was the giant mirror gate. It was ever so slightly larger than Atlantis. It was mostly white with metallic detailing around the sides.

Atlantis tilted forwards in space, so that the mirror gate was now directly above them. Around Atlantis, towers separated in half to show the large shiny barrels protected underneath.

Hot laser death shot out at the mirror gate in front of them and made a white hot circles of energy where it hit. It got too bright for the audience and they had to shield their eyes. Then the lasers stopped and the towers reconstructed themselves. Above them, instead of a ruined mirror gate, they saw a literal mirror instead.

Everyone who looked up saw a mirror image of Atlantis, as seen from above. Then the gateroom walls slid back into place, obscuring their vision.

McKay – "Not how I would've powered it but it worked. And it literally turns into a mirror? Weird."

Amy, to Weir – "Should we go through?"

Weir nodded and Amy powered Atlantis upwards into the mirror gate.

Shepard - "I hope that's not another Atlantis we're going to crash into. That would be awkward."

The mirror gate fell downwards upon them, engulfing the space city.

McKay, perhaps a little too excited – "And now we're going where no man has gone before."

McKay was wrong. So very wrong.

O-O-O-O

In a dimension they knew nothing about.

Weir picked herself off the ground. It seemed that going through the mirror gate was a little disorientating, much like the star gate.

Weir – "Is everyone okay?"

Others had fallen over but no one seemed too hurt by it.

Shepard – "Status report."

One of the soldiers sitting down with a laptop – "Passing through the mirror gate has caused havoc with some of our systems. Shields are down. Warp drive is down. Sensors are down but appear to be coming back up."

Another soldier at a desk – "Sensors back up. We've got… Oh no. Where's the mirror gate?"

Shepard – "It should out there. We just passed through it."

Same soldier – "It's not there!"

Shepard, sounding a little angry – "McKay. Explain."

McKay – "Uh. Well, technically, unlike the stargate, you wouldn't need a corresponding mirror gate in whatever dimension you're passing into."

Shepard – "Are you saying what I think you're saying?! Are we stuck here?"

Weir, to someone at a desk – "Try the long range subspace communicator. SGC said they have them most dimensions."

The soldier on sensors – "Uh, sirs! I think we've got hostiles!"

Shepard - "But we just got here! Who are they? The Wraith?"

Soldier on sensors - "I don't think so. There's a lot of them. They're fighting each other. I think we just walked into a space battle! Some are breaking off from the main conflict to attack us. Yup, we're under attack!"

Teyla, looking out a window – "He's right. We have ships baring down on us."

Shepard – "McKay, see if you can't get our shields up. Everyone else, battle stations!"

Soldier on sensors – "We've got… wait, are they throwing things at us?"

Shepard - "Isn't that what under attack means?"

Soldier on sensors - "No. I think they're literally throwing things at us. I'm not picking up proper weapons here."

O-O-O-O

In the puddle jumper hanger, lines of the small ships were ready to fly out in defense of the space city. But the airlock wouldn't open due to a safety precaution. Normally a specialized force field would erect itself over the airlock to allow puddle jumpers through but keep the air inside. For some reason that system wasn't working so a technician was wearing a spacesuit and was trying to force the airlock open manually.

He wasn't having any luck until something loud clamped on to the outside hull. There were some more clunks and clanks until the door buckled and was then slowly pried open from outside.

The pilots saw the technician running for his life and then saw bloodied, ragged looking people running into the hanger bay from the pried open airlock. Several of them shot the technician down, which alarmed the pilots.

One of the pilots started up his puddle jumper, despite not having an airlock to fly out of. He tried firing a drone at the airlock but his weapons wouldn't work.

That pilot, with a look of determination on his face – "Goddamnit!"

With more rashness than strictly necessary, he sped his puddle jumper forwards then swung in sideways, so he was "falling" against the air lock.

The puddle jumper collided with several of the invaders as it skidded across the floor. It collided with the airlock and made a relatively effective temporary barrier.

He was still quite stunned by the crash when he saw just what the invaders looked like and he was horrified by what he saw.

Pilot – "Oh my god."

An invader hit the windscreen to his puddle jumper with what looked like a pick axe and it turned almost white as it fractured heavily, obscuring his view.

What was most distressing for him was the fact that the pick axe had managed to go straight through the glass. He expected it to be tougher than that.

O-O-O-O

Outside, a furious space battle waged on.

Atlantis drone launchers were offline but the earth-built electronically controlled missile systems and rail guns were still working fine.

A soldier on the radio – "Sir. We don't know what side to back. Who do we shoot at?"

Someone else on the radio – "Aim for the evil looking ships! The ones that are ramming us!"

Yet another soldier – "You heard him, boys. Light em up."

The earth based missile systems whirred on their pivots and tracked unfriendly units from hundreds of kilometers away and let loose. The rail guns fired high energy armor piercing rounds at speeds comparable to the speed of light and for some odd reason glowed ultraviolet. The railguns set up a flak trap for the boarding ships while the missiles did their best to take out the larger ships.

O-O-O-O

Inside Atlantis, people were rushing around with a purpose.

There were breaches reported all over Atlantis and the invaders seemed to be everywhere.

Four guards and Shiva were rushing towards a reported breach when they saw some engineers running back in their direction.

One of the engineers – "They're right behind us! Run!"

The four guards didn't run however and set up position behind four separate structural supports.

The engineers kept running past them and the guards heard what sounded like a crowd stampeding on their position. The guards shared worried looks amongst themselves but only pressed themselves tighter behind their cover.

One of the guards - "Hey, where'd Shiva go?"

Another guard – "She was right behind us a second ago. Probably ran off."

The somewhat large crowd of invaders charged down the corridor and made much more noise than necessary. The four guards opened fire and the crowd seemed to soak up the bullets. The guards felt more than just another tinge of fear as some of the invaders started firing back at them.

One of the guards – "Retreat!"

Then the lights went out and they had little recourse but to keep firing.

The crowd rioted forwards and screamed with primal fury.

Then everything was quiet and the guards hastily put their infrared goggles on.

The crowd was literally cut to pieces on the floor in front of them. Some of the invaders had gotten uncomfortably close but were more than dead enough now.

In the middle of the corpses stood Shiva, who gave them a blood smeared smile.

Shiva – "You guys are so lucky I'm here."

One of the guards, visibly shaken – "How did you do that?"

Shiva, as if it was obvious – "I'm a slayer who can see in the dark. They didn't stand a chance."

One of the guards, checking out one of the invaders – "What the hell are these guys? They don't look like wraith."

Shiva – "They taste human enough to me."

That guard grimaced under his goggles. If they were human, he'd eat his infrared goggles.

O-O-O-O

In the gate room.

Several invaders had managed to find their way to the gate room but were cut down by withering machinegun fire.

Outside, the space battle had mostly ended. The invaders had lost.

Amy, revolting – "That is disgusting."

Amanda – "No, they're human alright."

Amy – "I get that they're human but why would they cut up their faces like that?"

Amanda shrugged – "That's a bit odd, yeah."

Shepard, holding up a crowbar – "I'm more interested in their weapons. Who the hell would use weapons like this in space? That's insane."

On the ground there were several examples of improvised weaponry. Sharp sticks, giant razor blade launchers, grappling hooks set onto poles. The juxtaposition of medieval and modern was unsettling.

Ronon Dex – "They might be crazy."

Shepard – "Then how did they get a hold of spaceships?"

Ronon Dex – "I asked myself the same thing when I met you."

A soldier at a desk – "We're being hailed."

Weir – "I'll take it."

A voice through the radio – "Thanks for the assist, whoever you are. Hey, who are you? We're not picking up your IDC."

Weir – "We're Atlantis and we are .. from out of town. We don't have an IDC installed. Who might I be talking to?"

Radio voice - "You're talking to Alliance main battle cruiser, the Cerberus."

Weir gave Teyla a look, to which she just shrugged.

Weir – "Is that any particular alliance?"

There was a long pause on the other side.

Alliance radio voice - "Hey, you're not... you're not aliens, are you?"

Weir – "We're human. I hope that won't be a problem. What species are you?"

Alliance radio voice, with a little laugh - "Don't take this the wrong way but where did you come from?"

Weir – "We're from another dimension."

There was another long pause on the other side.

Alliance radio voice, a bit more serious – "We're sending some diplomats over. You can explain this to them."

By the way he said that, he didn't believe them.

Weir – "We will be waiting for their arrival. If you give us a frequency, we can guide your diplomats to a working airlock."

While Weir worked out the smaller details of docking a ship to Atlantis when the airlocks weren't working, Shepard walked over to a window which McKay, Amanda and Amy was staring out of.

They saw the remains of a massive space battle. There were countless empty husks and in the distance a large space ship was spouting plumes of fire out one side which was causing it to cartwheel ever so slowly.

Then he noticed that they weren't in a space nebula at all but inside the atmosphere of a planet which was visibly arcing with heavy electrical storms. The planet itself looked devoid of life and much less interesting than the sky.

Amy - "Have you ever seen anything like that before?"

Shepard, a little impressed – "I haven't."

McKay – "That is one wacky atmosphere."

Shepard – "Amanda, do you want to meet and greet the diplomats they're sending over."

Amanda, speaking plainly – "Not really."

Shepard – "I'm quite sure they're not really diplomats. I thought it would be nice if some cute teenage girls keep them from causing too much trouble."

Amanda thought about it and smiled.

Amanda – "Okay. But only because you called me cute."

Shepard grinned as Amanda ran off to follow the welcoming committee.

Shepard – "We should get more of these slayers if we can."

O-O-O-O

Two days later.

A small, shoddily designed freight spaceship launched itself off the barren looking planet. As it reached escape velocity, an undoubtedly important piece of hull fell off.

Inside the ship, the captain was suitably alarmed

Malcolm Reynolds, AKA Mal - "What was that?"

River Tam - "An undoubtedly important piece of hull falling off."

Mal - "Again? KAYLEE!"

Kaylee the ship mechanic, running up through the middle of the ship - "It's not my fault!"

Mal, still calling out at her - "That's the second time in so many months! We almost died last time!"

Kaylee, walking into the spacious cockpit - "It's really not my fault."

Mal, pointing at Kaylee - "Once we get space side, you suit up and check it out."

Kaylee - "Boss, I know what just fell off. It's not just a piece of hull. That was part of the support structure. This ship is falling apart."

Mal - "So fix it."

Kaylee – "It's not that easy."

An unsettling groan passed through the ship, along with several loud clicks and clanks as rivets popped loose.

Mal - "What was that?"

Kaylee - "That would be the support structure failing."

Mal - "What is this support structure you keep talking about?"

Kaylee groaned and tried to put it simply - "It's the ship. The hull, the support struts and bulk heads. It's what we're walking on. I think after that crash landing, we broke too many things. I can fix one or two fractures at a time but the entire ship is warping. This isn't something you can just panel beat out or replace."

Mal - "What are you saying?"

River - "The ship is dying."

Mal - "Oh come on. I've heard that more than a few times. There's got to be something we can do."

Kaylee - "If we can get to a spaceport, I might be able to save it."

The ship groaned once more, this time much louder. Then the ship started vibrating as two metal things rubbed together that weren't supposed to rub together.

Jayne, from the hallway - "What the hell is going on?!"

River - "The ship is dying"

Jayne, barging into the cockpit - "Not with me on it! You land this thing now."

Mal - "This ship is not going to die. With any luck, we can salvage something from the scrapped alliance ships still out there. Talking of which, what the hell is that thing? I sure as hell didn't see that on the way down."

River, squinting out a view port - "I.. I don't know. Hey, not knowing something feels nice. It's been a while."

Jayne - "I thought you weren't going to say crazy things anymore."

River just grinned and shrugged.

Mal, to River - "Fly us closer. Try not to hit anything too big."

Kaylee, squinting at Mal – "What are you thinking?"

Mal – "You said we could save the ship if we got to a spaceport? That looks just as good as any space port I've ever seen. I honestly didn't know the Alliance had anything like that. It actually looks kinda girly for them."

Jayne, smirking – "Hey, I like girls."

Mal – "So we noticed. But it does looks expensive. We really should go extend our hands in friendship, just to be neighborly."

Kaylee – "You're thinking of stealing from them, aren't you?"

Mal – "How could you tell?"

Kaylee – "Extend our hand in friendship always means you're going to steal from them in Mal speak. I know you too well."

Mal – "I'm getting predictable? That can't be a good sign."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis conference room.

The conference room was still in a state of disrepair after a wraith dart had flown through it. But the table was still there and most of the chairs still worked. It mostly just the automated door panels that were broken.

McKay – "I've figured it out. Our warp drive, force fields and drones are not broken. Actually, I've built something to show you that they're not broken. Here I have a miniature force field generator. Watch what happens when I turn it on."

McKay placed a small black box, pushed the big red button on top of it and everyone waited for something to happen.

Shepard – "Is something supposed to happen?"

McKay – "Yes but it didn't. Because the physical laws of this universe are slightly different than ours. Force fields are immensely finely tuned. If the tuning it out by too much, they don't work at all. This dimension is different by just enough so that our force fields don't work here."

Shepard – "Can you retune them?"

McKay – "It's a bit of a pain but yes. I've done it to a few airlocks. But if we get back home, I'll need to tune them back manually. So, have you figured out anything about this dimension we're in? This doesn't sound like any we've been told about."

Shepard – "Actually, I've figured out quite a lot. From talking to those friendly Alliance people, I've worked out that the earth in this dimension is uninhabitable. The surface of their earth is permafrost which does correspond with an earth we know about. It just so happens that it's an earth that we don't have a subspace beacon placed in."

Teyla - "Might they not send someone to this earth to call us?"

Weir – "It's been almost three days and we haven't gotten any word yet. We should act on the assumption that they won't try that."

McKay – "For all we know, our subspace communications won't work in this dimension either. It's also a highly sophisticated system."

Shepard – "Do the ZPMs still work?"

McKay – "Yes but we shouldn't put them under too much strain, just to be safe. I don't even want to know what happens if they're destabilized."

Weir, turning to Zelenka – "How are the structural repairs coming?"

Zelenka – "Not bad, considering. Those Reavers did less damage than I would have thought and the Alliance seems eager to help us. Though, they do seem a little too curious about some of our technology. While they do have some very interesting technology themselves, some of which we don't have, I would have to say that we're far more technologically advanced. They have nothing like our ZPMs or forcefields. But my real concern is staff levels. We can't keep losing people like this or we won't be able to maintain Atlantis properly."

Weir – "Duly noted."

A soldier from the gate room walked in and a large panel half opened up to allow him access. This was unnecessary since most of the panels were missing.

Gate room soldier – "Ma'am, we've got a spaceship asking to board. They say they need a space port to repair their ship but they're not Alliance. Should we let them in?"

Weir – "Certainly. It'd be nice to hear from someone who isn't part of this Alliance. Send a small team of guards to welcome them aboard. Also, see if you can't ask the Alliance about these guests."

O-O-O-O

The spaceship Serenity hovered outside the open airlock.

Mal, in the cockpit – "Bridge. There's this glowing blue stuff in the airlock. Is that supposed to be there?"

Stargate soldier on radio – "Yes. It's safe. Just fly straight in."

Serenity flew through the force field with a slightly watery sound and skidded slightly along the deck as the artificial gravity pulled it downwards.

Once the ship stopped moving, the crew of Serenity were a little surprised at what they saw. The hanger bay was much larger than it looked from the outside.

Mal, to River – "Good piloting. Now let's meet these nice people with the ginormous ship."

Mal and River made their way to the cargo bay while the others in the ship were already there, happy to get off and explore this strange new phenomenon that was Atlantis.

Zoe, a stern but beautiful black chick - "Like I've said before, I don't trust anyone with a ship this big."

Kaylee – "So far, they're being nice. They are letting us repair our ship after all. I think we should try to be nice too."

Mal – "Let's do both. Be nice and don't trust them. Jayne, you have the honors."

Jayne pushed the big "open" button and the back of the ship opened up and slowly lowered a ramp downwards for them to walk out.

At the bottom of the ramp were some stargate soldiers and Sunday who was smiling despite wearing a cast on one leg.

Sunday – "Hi. Welcome to Atlantis. We hope you enjoy your…. Huh?"

Sunday was giving Kaylee an odd look and pushed the communication device she was wearing on her ear.

Sunday – "Doctor Keller. Unless you're busy, we require your presence down in hanger bay D."

O-O-O-O

Two minutes later.

Dr Keller had used the teleportation system to zip across Atlantis in an instant to hanger bay D. What she found there confused her to no end.

Sunday, to Kaylee and Jennifer Keller – "Could you two stand together? Maybe hug a little?"

Dr Simon Tam – "That's uncanny. She could be your older sister."

The funny situation had required Sunday to call a few friends to be witness to this event. Of course, those friends had called a few more friends and soon half of Atlantis was there.

Shiva – "Congratulations. It seems we've got the first alternates for this new dimension."

Keller – "But we're not exactly the same. She's a lot younger. And prettier."

Kaylee – "Nuh-uh. You're way prettier than me. I'm a bit pudgy."

Sunday – "Actually, that looks good on you. Maybe you should get Keller to eat more."

Keller – "What? I'm not exactly anorexic."

Sunday – "I'm just saying, you could do with some more weight."

Malcolm Reynolds – "Excuse me but you're telling us that you're from another dimension which has everyone from our dimension in it except they're different?"

Inara – "It does make some nice symmetry."

Shiva – "That's pretty much how it works, yes. I'm from a different dimension from most of the people here too."

Jayne Cobb – "This is bonkers."

River, a little concerned – "You're of the same soul. You have the same eyes."

Kaylee – "We do?"

Dr Beckett – "We could always do a DNA test."

Mal – "This is ridiculous. Our Kaylee is a mechanic and your Kaylee lookalike does not look like a mechanic."

Keller – "You're a mechanic? Really? I suck with cars."

Kaylee – "Cars? No, I'm a spaceship mechanic."

Keller, laughing – "Really? Wow. That's cool. I'm a doctor by the way."

Kaylee, laughing almost identically – "Really? Wow. How did you pull that off?"

Keller – "The usual way. I went to medical school."

Kaylee – "Oh. We didn't have one of those on my home world. But if we did, I might have gone. Hey, you want to see my spaceship. Afterwards, you could show me your hospital."

Keller, following Kaylee on board – "Sure. Though, I don't have a hospital, just a sick bay."

Sunday, once the twins were out of earshot – "Who wants to bet on them making out later?"

Simon Tam – "What?!"

Sunday – "What? It happens like one out of five times when two alternates meet and these cuties are really getting along together. It's good odds."

Shiva – "I think Sunday's mind is in the gutter again."

Jayne – "But I like where her mind is at. Tell me more."

O-O-O-O

On a small Alliance space frigate.

A frigate had launched off the planet and had reached escape velocity in less than a minute. It was carrying non-priority wounded, some broken equipment that needed fixing and a black guy that most people only knew as "the Operative."

In truth, his real name didn't matter and he wasn't an operative any longer. That life was behind him now.

The frigate was about to pass through the unnaturally thick and lightning filled ionosphere when they got hailed from the surface of the planet. The co-pilot got out of his chair and wandered through the ship and found who he was looking for.

Co-pilot, to the Operative – "Sir, there's something you urgently need to see."

The Operative, sounding tired - "Soldier, I am no longer in charge of this operation."

Co-pilot – "You'll want to see this. We picked it up on the Mr. Universe array. It's flooding the cortex."

Operative, looking a little concerned – "What exactly is flooding the cortex? Is this anything to do with the Reavers?"

Co-Pilot – "I think it might be. The core planets are being attacked."

This made the operative practically jump out of chair with alarm.

Operative – "Show me, now."

O-O-O-O

End of chapter

Continued in next chapter


	63. 18e Dirty little secret

Episode 18, chapter E : Dirty little secret

O-O-O-O

Tara's room in Atlantis.

Tara had woken up from her coma to find herself much less important. After Dr Beckett had looked her over, she was told she was fine but should stay in the sickbay for observation. Tara rejected this idea as the sickbay was already quite full with more needy patients.

So she went back to her room which no longer had its own guard detail and proceeded to mope around a little.

She didn't tell the doctor this but she felt like absolute crap. She could feel a hole in her being where the Scythe's connection to her was yanked out.

Then the door to her room opened and stopped further introversion when she saw Harmony coming in with a bright smile.

Harmony, gently hugging Tara – "Tara! You're alright!"

Tara – "Oh, uh, Harmony? I wondered what happened to you. I guess you're now back to normal, like the other slayers?"

Harmony nodded – "Yup, that I am. It's great. Mostly. I can finally think properly. Though, I did break up with Giles."

Tara, cringing a little – "What? Really? I thought you two were, you know, doing good."

Harmony – "Oh, we were. It's just… Before, I was mostly just clinging to him for protection, you know? He's a great guy but the way I acted with him sort of poisoned the relationship. It wasn't going to work anymore."

Tara, sitting down on the bed - "Let me get this straight. When you were immature, it was okay for him to have sex with you. But now that you're acting like an adult, it's not?"

Harmony, sitting down next to her – "Not the wording I'd use but… yeah. Sort of. But hey, at least he won't have to keep tidying up after me. Thinking back on it, I really was way too messy. I should probably work on that. But enough about me, how are you doing, sweetie?"

Tara – "Okay, I guess. I just…."

Harmony, not so bubbly – "Tara, I know it must have been horrible being held hostage by those vampires. I know more than you'd think. You can talk to me about it. And if there's anything I can do, just tell me."

Tara – "Actually, it wasn't so much horrible as… really really nice."

Harmony blinked a few times.

Harmony – "Huh? How so?"

Tara looked at Harmony's mouth and found herself gently biting her own lip with need.

Tara, sounding a little desperate – "Okay, you did just say that if there's anything you can do, to just tell you, right? Well, there is this one thing you can do that I couldn't ask anyone else."

Harmony, frowning – "Is it some weird lesbian thing?"

Tara – "Could you bite me?"

Harmony couldn't believe she just heard that and instantly felt her bloodlust swell as she tried to rationalize what Tara had said. Her eyes widened as her gameface sprung on and she had to stop herself from lunging forwards and biting the increasingly wholesome meal in front of her.

Instead of scaring Tara, Harmony saw unfettered need in the other girl's eyes.

Harmony, getting up off the bed – "Tara! Why would you ask that?"

Tara got off the bed too and pressed the physically stronger girl into the wall.

Tara – "You wouldn't believe how good it feels. I need it. I need you to bite me. Please. I'll do anything. Just bite me."

Harmony tilted her head away as she tried to desperately ignore everything her instincts were telling her. Seeing Harmony's exposed neck, Tara dove in and proceeded to do her best to give a massive hickey. This caused Harmony to make a funny gurgle sound as Tara played havoc with her powers of reasoning.

After a few seconds of Tara suckling on her neck, Harmony gave in and threw both of them on the bed. She sank her teeth deep into Tara's neck and moaned in appreciation as blood rushed into her mouth.

Tara let out her own moan at the sudden release and held Harmony's head to her with both hands. Harmony's hands slid up the sides of her beautiful victim as she took her full.

For the first time in a while, Harmony felt alive as Tara's arms went limp and flopped off her head.

This brought Harmony back to reality and she backed off Tara to find them relatively dead.

Harmony – "Oh crap. Tara? Tara!"

Harmony pressed her hand against Tara's throat, to stop the bleeding but it didn't look like that was necessary as there wasn't much blood left in her. She looked around the room in a panic for a few seconds before deciding on a course of action that meant she wouldn't lose her friend.

She ignored the pain and tore one of her wrists open. She pressed the wound over Tara's mouth and clenched her fist to squeeze some blood out.

Harmony – "Please, please, please, please! That, oh, that's it. You're still in there."

Harmony let out a small sigh of relief as she felt Tara suck weakly on her wrist.

Harmony's gameface fell away and she started sobbing to herself, partially with relief and partially because she really shouldn't be doing this.

O-O-O-O

Conference room.

Weir thought the crew of Serenity was interesting enough to bring up to the conference room. They were the first non-Alliance members that the SGC had come across and Weir thought they would be useful to get a more balanced view of events in this dimension.

But she was having mixed results in this regard.

McKay – "So let me get this straight. One of you rescued his genius sister who might possibly be psychic from a facility where they make the universe's most deadly assassins. You took her onto a spaceship where you befriended a band of lovable rogues, escaped capture time and time again, eventually uncovering a conspiracy of universe sized proportions and exposing the Reavers, the somewhat mythic victims of a chemically induced cannibalistic insanity…. But you're having believing in aliens?"

Zoe – "It's a lot to process."

Jayne – "How come we don't have any in our universe?"

Shepard – "I really don't know. You really should have come across some by now. Maybe they're kept secret. Most of the people on my planet don't even know we visit other worlds, let alone deal with aliens."

Mal – "After this past week, I wouldn't put it past them."

Weir heard something in the hands free device on her ear and she had ignored the last comment as she listened to it.

Weir, picking up a remote control – "We've got an emergency video call."

The remote controlled plasma display on the wall turned on, showing the video output of the alliance communication device that they had jury-rigged into their own.

On screen was none other than the face of the operative who had killed so many friends of the Serenity crew.

Jayne – "Goddamnit. Mal! You left that guy alive?

Mal – "It seemed like a good idea at the time. For the life of me, can't recollect why."

The Operative, on the screen – "Captain Reynolds? I wasn't expecting you to be there. Weir, is it? We've picked up something on the nexus which I would like to pass by you. I'm afraid it's not making much sense to us. It seems the core planets, those most supportive of the Alliance, are being attacked on a grand scale."

Dr Simon Tam, alarmed – "Reavers in the core?"

Mal – "No need to get your panties in a twist, Doc. The Reavers might pick clean the border worlds but they've got defenses in the core. Asteroid defense belts, fleet patrols, rapid response teams. Dropping Reavers into that would be like throwing a stone into the ocean. Nothing to worry about."

The Operative – "Captain Reynolds would be right. Except this doesn't seem to be a last desperate attack by these Reavers of yours. It's much worse than that. Persephone, Beaumonde and Halifax have already fallen."

Simon Tam – "What? How?"

The Operative – "Not by spaceship, I can tell you that. The core planets are just going quiet, one at a time."

Jayne – "Could it be that pacifying stuff they used on Miranda? The pax?"

The Operative – "Of that I doubt. There are very definite attacks underway but unlike anything else we've seen. Eye witness accounts are saying they're aliens."

Jayne muttered something in Mandarin.

Jayne – "Soldier boy was right, we were lied to. Aliens exist."

The Operative – "Most troubling, is that the aliens seem to have the ability to appear out of thin air, like Atlantis. I think you had better explain yourselves now, before what's left of my fleet do their best to tear you apart."

Jayne – "Can you let us off here first before you do that?"

Mal – "Look who you're talking to, Jayne. Of course he won't."

Weir – "This is all a misunderstanding. Our mission was to go to a completely different dimension to transport troops and give air support against a force that … I suppose you would call them aliens. That's how I think of them. They have the ability to travel between dimensions too. It could be that these aliens are what are attacking your planets."

The Operative – "I see. Now that they're here, I suppose there's nothing you can do about it. Some warning would have been good."

Weir – "I honestly didn't expect them to be here."

Shiva, mostly to Weir – "They were probably here before we arrived. There's only a handful of dimensions they can go to, they're probably trying to take them all over."

The Operative, with clear concern on his face – "Things are not going well for us, I know it might not be your mission but can we ask for your help?"

Weir – "At the moment, we're trying to fix the problems with our hyper drive and force fields but once we've got those working, we'll do what we can."

The Operative considered this then seemed to take Weir at her word.

The Operative – "I'm sending you all the information on the aliens we've got so far, including our star charts. I'll also send over some engineers to help you get back up to speed."

Weir – "I appreciate it."

The Operative – "Then I'll expect your help later."

Weir – "It looks like we're all in this together, whether we like it or not."

The Operative smiled weakly then cut off his signal.

After a few seconds, the scene on the screen changed to that of the gate control room. A comms specialist was talking directly into the camera.

Comms specialist – "Weir, we've getting a heap of files transmitted to us from the Alliance. A lot of it is video. There's one video in particular we've been told to show you first."

Weir – "Show me."

The plasma display now changed to a scene of war, seen from a few stories above ground level. There were people screaming and running though the streets below as the cameraman pointed his camera out the window. A dozen or so soldiers were in the street, wielding efficient looking rifles. A few saw the cameraman but recognized him as a friendly before firing upon him.

A dull but loud explosion sounded off in the distance, getting more screams from the civilians as the soldiers decided to dig in where they were.

One of the soldiers – "Get off the streets, people! They're coming!"

And coming they were.

A wall next to the soldiers collapsed and crushed one of the soldiers, wounding another.

Other soldiers turned to help their comrades when a human sized enemy appeared behind the collapsed wall. The soldiers opened fire once they realized what it was.

The enemy reached forwards and grabbed one of the soldiers to use as a meat shield. While the other soldiers tried to flank the lone enemy, four more enemies rushed them from behind.

The soldiers fired at close range but it did little to the enemy who seemed to be quite bulletproof. The soldiers were clobbered around the head and knocked to the ground.

Then the enemy did something few in the room were ready for.

The pixilated camera footage didn't help at all but either the enemy were kissing the soldiers or…

Jayne, squinting at the display – "Are they biting them in the face?"

Shiva – "Ahh crap. They're here too."

Zoe – "What's here? What are there?"

Shiva – "Face eaters. Eaters for short. From what I've been told, they invade dimensions then kill everyone there. Anyone they bite in the face is supposed to turn into one of them. I fought one in my dimension. They're tougher than they look."

On screen, one of the soldiers had run off while the eaters had taken down the rest of the soldiers. As they watched, the bitten soldiers got back up and fell into line behind the face eaters with gore dribbling down the front of their shirts.

Then the face eaters started running again and their new numbers followed in kind.

Shiva – "Whoa. That was quick. I didn't know they worked that fast. That… that's not good."

Weir – "No. It's not."

Jayne swore something out in Mandarin again and got up out of his chair.

Jayne – "Mal, I gotta go save my mom. My homeworld is right next to Halifax. I gotta take the Serenity. I promise I'll bring it right back."

Shiva – "If they can multiply like that, I think your home world is already gone."

Jayne – "You don't know that! They might not know how to fly a ship."

Mal – "If you're going to save your mom, I'd come along. But the ship is busted. It aint going nowhere."

Jayne – "I'll risk it."

Mal, – "Don't you remember those disconcerting noises it was making?"

Shiva, stopping Jayne – "I think you need to rethink this."

Jayne – "Out of my way."

Jayne tried to shove Shiva aside but she was way too quick for that. Before he knew what had happened, he had his face pressed into the table and both his hands held behind his back.

Shiva – "Like I said, I think you need to rethink this. You might be strong for a human but I doubt there's much you can do to an eater. I took you down easily enough."

Jayne – "You took me by surprise!"

Shiva, letting him go – "Think of this is practice. If you can't get by me, you're not ready."

Jayne pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Shiva.

Jayne – "Get out of my way!"

Shiva looked down at the gun then back up at Jayne and smirked.

Mal – "Uh, Jayne. Let's not do anything we'll regret."

Shiva – "It's okay. As long as that's not a laser rifle or something fancy, it won't kill me."

Jayne tilted the gun away from Shiva's main body mass as he realized he didn't actually want to kill the little girl.

BANG!

Everyone in the room was surprised that Jayne shot her in the shoulder. When Jayne tried walking past her again, she grabbed him by the throat with her working arm and tossed him on the table.

Shiva, with full game face on – "I can't believe you just shot me! Are you crazy! You don't go around shooting people!"

Jayne, while trying to figure Shiva's face out – "It's sort of my thing."

Shiva, taking his pistol off him – "Okay, you shot me. Please notice that it didn't slow me down."

Mal – "What is with your face? And how did you do that?"

Shiva – "I didn't want to bring it up but I'm not human. There are things you have no idea about and I'm sorry your universe had been caught in the middle of this but deal with it. If those eaters have access to spaceships, they'll spread through your populated worlds like a plague, killing or converting everything in their wake. This isn't the time to go off half-cocked. If we do anything, we do it as a group."

Shiva let Jayne go and let her game face fade away when she realized that there were now some guards in the room and she didn't like the looks they were giving her.

Weir, to the guards – "I think it's okay."

One of the guards – "If you're sure."

McKay – "If those face eaters can turn people that fast, they must have an exponential growth rate."

River – "This is so not good."

Zoe – "Mal, we should warn some people about this. The outer colonies. This could get big."

River – "It already is big. The core planets will fall within a month."

Dr – "You don't know that."

River – "I do. We will retaliate from space but they must already be inside the hub of the defense control nexus. They'll see us coming. They should already have access to much of the Alliance fleet and all the stationary planetary defense systems. It's unlikely we can outmaneuver them and we don't have enough forces for a war of attrition. The only thing that could stop them is possibly Atlantis."

McKay, muttering to himself – "Which is sort of typical, now that I think about it."

Weir – "McKay, how long will it take to get Atlantis battle ready?"

McKay – "Uhh. I don't know. It'll take about a week just to get the main force field online and don't expect it to have stealth built in. But I still have no idea what's wrong with the hyperdrive and the drones. Without the drones, we won't be able to fire back with our shields on. The earth based weapons we've installed won't go through our shields. So, if we want to use them, we'd have to take out shields down. And without hyperdrive, it doesn't really matter what we do because we won't go anywhere. And I have no idea how long that will take to fix either. But it will probably take another week."

River – "A week might be too long."

Mal – "So what? We've got to try."

River, perhaps a little confused – "Why?"

Mal – "You've got a better idea?"

River, frowning – "No. That doesn't mean there isn't a better idea."

McKay – "Oooh. I think I just thought of something. Sort of a two birds with one stone type thing. The eaters, they can't invade our dimension because they haven't got a representative in it yet, right?"

Shiva – "That's the theory, yes."

Mal – "What's this now?"

Shiva – "It's a magic thing. The face eaters are actually being remote controlled and remote powered. In every different dimension, they need a sort of signal relay. The only one we've found so far was a person. A very evil person. Kinda sexy too. But that's a different story. It's how we're planning to kill the eaters. We find their local representatives and kill them. Doing that kills all the eaters in the entire dimension."

Jayne – "You're saying we kill one guy and they all die?"

Shiva – "If it's the right guy, yes."

Jayne – "So how do we find this asshole?"

Shiva – "That's something we haven't figured out yet."

McKay – "Exactly. We haven't figured that out yet. So since we can't save this dimension we're going to have to leave it."

Jayne – "Hey! You said you were going to help."

McKay, backing up a little – "Uh, yes, we will. Look, our dimension is safe for the moment. Yours isn't. What if we evacuate people from your universe to ours?"

Weir – "But we don't know how to make mirror gates yet."

McKay – "But I know which files will tell us. They're just encrypted. If I divert more processing power to cracking them, we can probably have them open in no time."

Weir considered this.

On one hand, they faced what was probably an unavoidable and meaningless death. On the other hand, they might get to fight another day and save a few people too.

Weir – "Do it. I'll reassign Zelenka to work on the drones."

McKay, grinning – "You won't regret this."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later

McKay, with his game face on – "ARGGH! Fricken stupid computer!"

Amanda, grimacing – "Uh, Rodney, you've got icky face on."

Quite a few people have moved down to the database section of Atlantis, all of them looking for hints into how to unlock the files they needed. But it seemed pretty obvious that this wasn't going to happen.

McKay, still with his game face on – "I don't believe this. What the hell is this encryption method? It works on base pi or something crazy. It doesn't make sense how it works."

Amy – "You know, if you're having trouble, I could help."

McKay – "I doubt that somehow."

Amy pressed her hand against his computer screen and it glowed blue for a second.

When she took her hand away, McKay's eyes widened as he saw the files unlocked.

McKay – "How did you do that?!"

Amy, downplaying her success badly - "What that? It's just a simple base pi encryption method. Nothing magic can't handle."

McKay – "You can use magic to hack computers?"

Amy – "Some of them. Not ATMs though. Most banks seem to know about magic for some reason."

McKay, skimming through the files – "Here it is! The plans for the mirror gate, notes on how it works and… hold on. Merlin didn't write this. This is before him. Ahh, here's his notes and… yes, he was trying to figure out how it worked."

Amy grunted and held out the Scythe at arms length.

Amy – "Ugh. What the hell? Oh, right. Tara talked about this. Uh, guys, the scythe is telling me to do something."

Amanda – "If it's telling you to kill me, I'd like some warning."

Amy, as she walked robotically towards a table – "This does not feel nice."

Most of the people in the room were now watching her as she placed the scythe down on the table. Almost immediately, a bright white light scanned back and forth from table as if it was an open photocopier machine.

Amy, squinting – "What's it doing?"

McKay – "I think it's scanning the scythe."

Then the bright light disappeared and in its place a holographic screen sprung up.

Lists and diagrams rolled up the holographic screen as Amy felt herself stuck in one place.

Amy – "What's going on?"

McKay, staring at his laptop – "It's unlocking everything! It's… showing us hidden files. I didn't know this OS had support for hidden files."

O-O-O-O

Harmony had moved Tara's body to somewhere else in the station, just in case someone went looking for her while she was dead.

But Harmony had to leave Tara alone, at least for a few minutes, to get some blood. But she hurried back, wanting to be there for when Tara woke up.

When she walked though the door into the dark windowless room she left Tara, Harmony found herself in some strange alternate universe.

There were scented candles giving the room some really nice mood lighting and there was some indigo girls playing. Also Tara was only wearing a silk sheet.

Tara let the silk sheet slide off her and Harmony almost dropped her blood.

There was a long, embarrassing pause as neither of them did anything.

Tara, with more than a little fear of rejection – "I'm ready for you. You turned me. Now you get to enjoy me."

Harmony, slowly – "I think there's been a misunderstanding here."

Tara quickly picked the sheet back up and covered herself with it.

Tara – "I'm sorry. I need some privacy now."

Harmony, placing the blood down on a nearby shelf – "Tara, I obviously gave you the wrong idea."

Tara's game face turned on to show just how pissed she was.

Tara, yelling – "The wrong idea? The wrong idea!? You turned me!"

Harmony, whiny – "I'm sorry for that. But you threw yourself at me."

Tara – "I didn't expect you to kill me! But you did and now you don't even want me! Get out! Get the hell out!"

Harmony, backing away as Tara started throwing scented candles – "Okay, okay!"

She opened the door and backed through it. When it shut, she could hear Tara break down in tears on the other side, despite how sound proof the walls were.

Harmony – "I'm such an idiot."

O-O-O-O

Gate control room.

Amanda – "He's so smart. Like jeopardy smart."

McKay – "It's true. I am. But I can't take the credit here. Or much credit at all for that matter. But yes, I am smart."

Shepard – "So you've figured out how to make a mirror gate?"

McKay – "Not just the small ones but the Atlantis sized big ones too. We've got all sorts of blueprints for them now. We've even got a stargate sized design which looks like it's supposed to connect straight onto a stargate. I have no idea if any were ever made but that's wild, right? And, of course, we can build them using Atlantis' own manufacturing plants. We will have to convert some drones into raw matter for the fabrication process but not as many as you'd think. The mirror gate is relatively thin."

Shepard – "And you're sure they work? I don't want us to build a giant mirror gate only for it to not work in this dimension."

McKay – "Oh, they work. I've tested it. Threw a candy bar into another dimension. I've even taken the liberty of finding out which dimension is which by hooking the subspace communications device up to my small scale tests. I've phoned home and they know all about our situation now. They've agreed with our retreat and want us to evacuate as many people as possible. Especially evacuate as many working space ships as possible."

Weir – "I think I'll talk to them myself. Nice work, Rodney. It looks like dying hasn't slowed you down at all."

McKay shrugged with a smile – "It has maybe a little bit. But I'm still brilliant."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else on the station.

Harmony knocked on a door and waited for a reply.

Harmony heard Sunday's voice trill from behind the door

Sunday, singing – "Come in."

Harmony opened the door and walked in to find Sunday sexily posed on the bed and framed in white lingerie that matched the white gauze her wounds were covered with.

Harmony blinked a few times while Sunday frowned.

Sunday – "Oh, you're not who I was expecting. But come in anyway. They're obviously late."

Harmony, walking into the room – "Uh, okay."

The door closed behind her and Harmony felt more than a little uncomfortable, for more than one reason.

Sunday, back to looking sexy – "So, Harmony, isn't it? What brings you to my parlor?"

Harmony – "Umm. I've got a sort of problem. And the other slayers seemed pretty busy."

Sunday, looking Harmony up and down – "Go on."

Harmony – "You know how Amanda turned that guy? Does that happen a lot? I mean, with slayers who are vampires like us?"

Sunday – "Not as much as normal vampires but sure. Why? Oh, you turned someone too? I don't remember hearing about that. So is it a girl or guy?"

Harmony – "They're a girl."

Sunday – "Nice. So what's the problem? They're not trying to kill people, are they? That can happen."

Harmony – "No! it's nothing like that. It's just, there's something I thought you could help me with. One of us wants to have sex while the other one doesn't."

Sunday rolled her eyes and patted a place on he bed for Harmony to sit down on. Harmony sat down as instructed and clenched up as Sunday hugged her from behind.

Sunday, playing with Harmony's hair – "Lots of slayers have this problem. I'm sure your childe will become more receptive in time. In the meantime, you can probably get away with some snuggling. They're usually okay with that. Just keep everything nice and comfortable and they'll come around when they're ready."

Harmony, jumping off the bed – "I'm not the one who wants sex!"

Sunday was disappointed and then laughed a little.

Sunday - "They want sex but you don't? I've never come across that before. Maybe I can talk to them for you."

O-O-O-O

Mal frowned at the face he saw staring back at him on the video screen.

Mal – "You? What are you doing back down there?"

The Operative – "I'm not just a trained assassin. I'm also a trained communications technician."

Mal was still on Atlantis while the Operative was back on the planet, inside the late Mr Universe's home. Mal had been filling Weir in on the history of his universe, according to him, while the rest of his crew did their best to repair Serenity.

The Operative – "We have repaired much of this facility. Now not only can we receive but we can also transmit, cutting through all but the strongest jamming signals. According to our readout, over ninety percent of the core worlds have fallen and about a third of the outer colonies have too. Any word on this miraculous portal of yours?"

Weir – "We've already started work on the mirror gate. It should be complete within ten hours. How long do you think it will take the refugees to reach us?"

The Operative – "Therein lays the dilemma. Within thirteen hours, we should be able to have at least half of the refugees. But it's more than possible that we could be under serious attack within twelve and a half hours."

Weir – "How about we let civilian ships through but retain military vessels to defend our escape route? When we near the twelve hour mark, we'll see how the wind is blowing and change our tactics accordingly?"

The Operative, considering this – "That sounds reasonable enough. If you ask the Alliance officer in your control room, he should be able to be able to link into the flight telemetry of all Alliance and registered civilian vessels in the area. That should act as an early warning system."

Mal – "We'll take care of everything up here, you just put the word out. Get everything and everyone to come here."

Weir – "That's my line. I'm in charge here."

Mal – "You're right. Sorry."

O-O-O-O

Harmony took Sunday into the room where she had stashed Tara. The lights were on, the candles had been put out and Tara was wearing a fluffy dressing gown and bunny rabbit slippers. They weren't Tara's.

Sunday, seeing Tara – "Harmony, what's the problem? They're beautiful. Uh.. hold on, that's Tara! That's the girl with the funny axe. Oh crap, isn't that Buffy's friend? Like, the human Buffy?"

Harmony, wincing – "Yeah."

Sunday – "I saw her in the sickbay when she woke up. She was alive. You… Oh crap, the humans will not understand this."

Harmony – "She forced herself on me. She asked for me to bite her. Tell her, Tara."

Tara, sounding defeated – "It's true. This is all my fault."

Sunday – "Really? Well, even if that's true, the humans won't believe that."

Harmony – "That's what I figured."

Sunday – "Keep her hidden. When we get back to earth, we should be able to smuggle her off without a doctor looking at her."

Tara – "Then what?"

Sunday – "Then, umm, I don't know. You'll live a new life as a vampire. It's not that bad."

Tara – "But it is. I'm not exactly a good candidate for being a vampire. I'm no good at fighting. I can't even do proper magic now that I'm a vampire."

Sunday – "That's not true. We've got a vampire version of you in our dimension and I'm told she does plenty of magic. She's being useful too. She's in one of our recon units."

Tara – "Really?"

Harmony – "Remember how we met them before. Amanda told me she saw you fighting before that and you were doing roundhouse kicks and tearing bringers apart. Then she ate some vampcandy and went all quiet. But until that happened, you were a badass."

Tara, frowning – "I don't feel like a badass."

Sunday – "You probably don't. You just want to please your sire, don't you? And you don't think you are?"

Tara, looking a bit defeated – "Yes."

Sunday, giving Tara a hug – "That's classic slayer child behavior. Poor baby. Don't worry, it'll get better."

Harmony found herself loudly growling with disapproval when Sunday copped a feel of Tara's ass.

Sunday, finding this funny – "Aren't we being possessive?"

Harmony – "Hey, that's…"

Sunday, smirking – "Yes?"

Harmony found herself so angry that she was having trouble forming proper sentences.

Harmony – "That's… She's… Mine!"

Harmony pushed Sunday away with anger while Sunday just laughed.

Sunday – "Okay. She's yours. Whatever. I'm going back to my room. I do have an appointment after all."

Sunday left the room and Harmony looked over Tara, as if to make sure she wasn't' damaged by Sunday. Harmony didn't really know what she was doing but after she felt that Tara was physically okay. Once that was settled, Harmony growled with some disapproval at Tara.

Tara, sounding hopeful – "I'm yours?"

Harmony still felt angry that Tara let Sunday hold her like that but realized that Tara was letting her hold her the same way too. She got a little curious and lowered Tara onto the bed and crawled on top of her.

Instead of pushing her away, Tara smiled back happily while Harmony prodded her in different places as if trying to see what she could get away with.

Harmony tried to make sense of what she felt for Tara and realized that it wasn't what she felt for anyone else she had turned.

Everyone she had turned before had been minions but Tara was different. Minion didn't suit Tara as a title at all and Harmony felt a name rise up from her subconscious which felt both wrong but so right at the same time.

Harmony – "Toy."

While it objectified Tara to no end, Harmony realized that she could have a lot of fun with Tara if she thought of her in that way. As long as she didn't break her.

Tara – "I can be your toy."

Harmony could feel her sexuality rearrange itself as it started dissecting Tara into her composite parts. Soulful blue eyes full of longing, full and expressive lips, silky soft skin and…. Boobs!

Tara frowned as she saw Harmony staring down at her chest with some indecision.

Tara – "Umm, you can play with them if you want."

Tara slowly teased open her dressing gown and Harmony forced herself to look away.

Tara, with her hand on the back of Harmony's head – "It's okay."

Tara gently pulled her down but Harmony fought against this and kissed her on the mouth instead. Harmony moaned as she felt unexpected passion stir within her.

Harmony, backing off to say something – "You're going to have to tell me what to do. Because I have no idea."

Tara – "That won't be a problem. Uh, actually, if you want to do it more like you're used to it, there's something you might want to try. Willow gave me our simulacrum as a goodbye present."

Harmony – "Simulacrum?"

Tara – "You know them as the magical detachable dicks."

Harmony blinked at her.

Harmony – "Omigod! You have one of those? And you'd let me use it on you first though? Because I, umm.."

Tara, smirking – "You want the power? Sure, go ahead. But I think you'll find out that I'll be the one with the power. You've got a lot to learn."

O-O-O-O

End of chapter

Continued in next chapter


	64. 18f Exodus

Episode 18, chapter F : Exodus

O-O-O-O

Thirteen and a half hours later.

Harmony and Tara had been having crazy hot blonde and blonde sex all day long. Harmony had taken a few breaks when Tara had blacked out.

Some time around the twelve hour mark, Harmony felt like a rest herself.

Tara, held in Harmony's arms – "Oh my god."

Harmony, smirking – "You've said that before."

Tara, looking a little traumatized – "Yeah but oh my god. Why aren't you tired? When you were with Spike and Giles, did you have sex like that? For that long?"

Harmony – "Not with Giles, no. Human men have trouble keeping it up for that long. But with Spike, sure."

Tara – "Seriously? I don't think that's normal."

Harmony – "I haven't really thought about it before. I know Spike used to get bored with me all the time. And Xander had some trouble keeping it up after an hour or so too. Though, that was actually Faith so it might not count. It was still awesome though."

Tara – "When I was with Willow, we would only spend around fifteen minutes for an entire night. I've never done anything like that before. I'm so sore but it feels wonderful. Uh-oh. I hope doing it this much isn't going to stretch me too much. I don't want to be all loosey-goosey."

Harmony laughed – "That's not how it works. That's man logic."

Tara – "What?"

Harmony, explaining – "No, seriously, it's man logic. They think virgins are tight. When I was a virgin, I wasn't that tight. If you want tightness, you go for muscle mass. And that means working your money maker. I'm a vice down there now."

Tara, thinking about this – "So you're saying I'll get tighter?"

Harmony – "Yup. Unless stop you exercising and then you'll go loosey-goosey. And we don't want that, do we?"

Tara, smirking – "No, I guess not."

Harmony growled somewhat sexily and kissed Tara some more but stopped when Tara gently pushed her away.

Tara – "This has really gone on long enough. I think it's safe to say you're a nymphomaniac."

Harmony, laughing – "You're not bad yourself."

Tara, frowning – "No, really. Nymphomania, it's a real condition. I think. Or maybe it's just made but up. I don't really know. Let me put it this way, we've been having sex for over twelve hours. I think that's enough for one day."

Harmony pouted with disappointment.

Tara – "I might be wrong but I'm quite sure this amount of sex isn't normal. Were you like this when you were human?"

Harmony frowned – "I don't know. I, umm, was sort of a virgin when I was turned. Maybe it's a slayer thing. They do have super endurance or something. I'm still a little fuzzy about everything they get."

Tara shook her head – "It's not a slayer thing. I've seen slayers in bed before and trust me, they don't compare to you."

Harmony, laughing – "I heard about that. Faith and Kennedy put on a show for you. Wait, they had sex in front of you? I thought they just pretended to be strippers."

Tara winced but smiled at the same time – "It was sort of a dare thing. They'd do everything we did. After a while, they forgot about the whole dare part and just had frantic slayer on slayer sex. They were very… energetic."

Harmony – "I like to think I can be energetic too."

Tara – "So I've noticed. But please, I need some rest. Some proper rest that doesn't involve me waking back up and being ravaged by you until I faint from pleasure again."

Harmony – "Oh, alright. I guess you've earned it."

With a sigh, Harmony spooned around Tara, holding her close as both of them closed their eyes. Though Harmony's brow knotted together as something unsaid asked for attention.

Harmony, a little embarrassed - "I'm falling fast in love with you."

Tara, with a small laugh – "Me too. Though, I might just be lightheaded from all that sex. Did I mention you're amazing?"

Harmony grinned – "Just a few times."

Tara – "I still can't believe this. I'm a vampire and I've got a sexy nymphomaniac for a sire. If someone told me this would happen last week, I wouldn't have believed them."

Without warning, sirens blared throughout Atlantis and quickly reminded Tara of where she was.

Harmony, with a groan – "That's the call for battle stations. Time for clothes."

Tara, groaning too – "I hate clothes."

O-O-O-O

In the gate control room.

Elizabeth Weir, Shepard, McKay and Teyla were standing in front of a plasma display that someone had set up next to the subspace communication system.

On the screen was "the Operative", who was still down on the planet.

The Operative – "There's a large armada twenty minutes out. They obviously know we're here. They're forming a pincer and I don't think we're in any state to resist them. I don't see any point in waiting any longer. The next band of refugees is another eight hours away and we won't last that long."

Weir – "Understood. You should make your way up here."

The Operative – "I doubt I'll make it in time and you shouldn't worry about me. Leave now before -"

The audiovisual signal was flooded with static, followed by the dull thud of something ramming Atlantis.

Shepard, with a finger to his ear – "What the hell was that?"

One of the soldiers at a laptop behind them – "Something breached our hull."

Shepard – "Why wasn't it picked off by our turrets?"

Same soldier – "We couldn't get a clear fix. It blinded our sensors. Whatever it is, it's jamming our radios too."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else on Atlantis.

Eight guards, a slayer with bandages wrapped around her waist and Amanda approached a large spike like metal ship that had penetrated the side of a tower. Air was whistling out between the cracks where the friction of the impact hadn't fused the metal ship and the tower together.

They realized that something was a making noise inside it then a panel popped open and a face eater jumped out.

The guards opened fire immediately.

The face eater ignored their gunfire and ran at them with what looked like an improvised mace. He swatted one of the soldiers to the side and the soldiers found themselves in a state of disorganization as they couldn't safely fire at the eater without shooting their own men.

The bandaged slayer jumped in, knocking the eater off its feet and shoving a short sword into their lamprey like mouth, hopefully severing its spinal cord.

Two more eaters emerged from the boarding craft and the slayer pulled her sword back out to face them.

The eater she had just stabbed in the face grabbed her roughly by the knee and swung his makeshift mace up into her tailbone. She yelped as sharp metal embedded itself into tender flesh.

The soldiers started firing again with several of them trying to wrestle the eater off the slayer while Amanda did her best to fend off the other two eaters.

The soldiers weren't doing so well and the wounded eater crawled its way on top of the bandaged slayer then reared back in preparation for a bone shattering bite to her face.

One of the soldiers grabbed it around the mouth and got bit in the forearm for his efforts. He grit his teeth and managed to pull it off her with sheer determination.

Once she had the heavy monster off her, the bandaged slayer was quick to her feet despite her painful wound. Without any more hesitation, she drove her short back into the eaters face then wrenched it in a circle, this time making sure she dislodged enough vertebrae to disable them properly.

Then she spun around and stabbed her sword through the back of the eater about to bite Amanda's face off.

Bandaged slayer, disemboweling the eater's brains – "Sonovabitch! These buggers are tough."

One of the soldiers – "Where's the other one? There were three, right?"

Wherever the third eater was, it wasn't here now.

The soldier that got bit in the arm looked frantic as he clenched his own arm.

The Soldier with a bitten arm – "There's something in my arm! Get it out! It's crawling through my arm!"

One of the guards tore the bitten man's sleeve open to expose deathly white flesh growing out from where he was bitten. The flesh itself seemed to have something wriggling underneath it.

One of the soldiers – "Shit! That aint good."

Then there was a flash of metal and the guy's arm was cut off, a little further up from the elbow.

Blood practically sprayed out from the hastily amputated arm but the bandaged slayer stopped that quickly by using her belt as a tourniquet. The soldier just stared wordlessly in total shock at the loss of his arm.

Amanda – "I can't believe you did that!"

Bandaged slayer – "We need to get him to medical. And we should probably get someone to look at what I cut off too."

On the floor, the arm grew completely grey as something continued to squirm underneath the skin.

Amanda – "Well, I'm not touching it. Screw that!"

O-O-O-O

In the gate room.

Amy had the Scythe slotted into its podium and was slowly aligning Atlantis towards the mirror gate which they had made.

Shepard, as gunfire was heard in the distance – "I hope this mirror gate you made works."

The gunfire seemed to getting closer and the guards gave themselves worried looks.

Shepard – "McKay, maybe you should shield Amy."

McKay, confused – "With what?!"

Shepard – "Your body. Bullets won't kill you now, remember?"

McKay – "Oh, right."

Shepard – "Shiva, Harmony, go over to the other side. We'll handle this side. Men, get the big guns out."

It seemed they were ready for face eaters as some of the guards pulled out the few remaining rocket launchers on Atlantis. Most had gotten destroyed or used up during the vampire rebellion.

McKay looked more than a little awkward as he stood like a soccer goalie in front of Amy as Atlantis started its firing sequence.

There was a quickly silenced scream heard just outside of the gate room and the guards held their weapons tighter in preparation.

But nothing came.

The first sign of something wrong was McKay screaming like a girl as a face eater threw him across the room. This took most of the room by surprise as they didn't see the eater enter the room beforehand.

The eater wrapped his arms around Amy, grabbed the scythe and yanked it out of the podium. Before anyone could properly aim at the eater, the space around it seemed to warp and tuck in on itself.

A fraction of a second later, there wasn't any sign of the eater, Amy or the scythe.

The giant laser cannons set into Atlantis powered down and the mirror gate slowly cooled itself in the thin atmosphere outside.

Harmony groaned - "That's just great. Now what are we going to do?"

A soldier manning the sensors relay – "The enemy fleet is moving in to attack!"

Shepard – "Aahhh crap. Let's at least make them pay for it."

Weir – "Zelenka, go ready the bomb."

O-O-O-O

Amy gasped as she found herself somewhere completely different.

A face eater tore the scythe from her hands while another held her in place. She struggled but it was futile..

Before she thought to try some magic, she saw someone which made her stare.

Another Amy – "Hey me."

This Amy had unhealthily white skin with a hint of blue mixed in and had several large pinkish puncture marks on her face. Some of the puncture marks were under her chin, some along the sides of her face and some along her forehead. Despite their size and depth, she didn't seem to be in any pain.

Evil Amy, to the face eater holding Amy – "You can let her go. I'll keep an eye on her."

The face eater obeyed then warped away, leaving the two Amys alone.

Evil Amy – "You've probably got a lot of questions."

Amy – "You're not me."

Evil Amy, with a laugh – "Of course I'm not. I'm just an alternate version of you. Do you know where we are? We're on an alien world, one of many that humanity colonizes in the future. I forget the name. It's Chinese sounding."

Amy looked out a window and saw that she was in some sort of aircraft or space vessel that was flying low over what was once a sprawling city. Now it was a burnt of husk of what it had been.

Amy – "You've been bitten on the face by one of those eaters, haven't you?"

Evil Amy nodded – "That's right."

Amy – "Why didn't they bite your face off like they do to everyone else?"

Evil Amy – "They don't literally bite your face off. What they do is inject their seed into your face and then your face explodes from the inside."

Amy, a little queasily – "Okay. So why hasn't your face exploded?"

Evil Amy – "Because the guy who controls the face eaters took a special interest in me. You'll meet him soon. Don't worry. He's nice. You'll like him."

Amy, skeptically – "The guy who's going around killing entire planets is nice?"

Evil Amy, laughing – "I know! It's weird. But you've got to understand, they're not dead. Not really."

Amy – "I consider not having a face close enough to dead for my liking."

Evil Amy – "I wasn't talking about the drones. Those are just meat puppets. I'm talking about… actually, it's faster if I just show you. He's coming soon and he'll show you everything."

Amy – "What do you want from me?"

Evil Amy – "What do you know about the eaters?"

Amy – "Not much. They're tough. They're all controlled by one guy and for them to exist in a dimension, that one guy needs someone to represent him."

Evil Amy – "That's true enough for the most part. Not a lot of people can represent him. Since something the good guys have done, we'd be lucky to find maybe five or six people in an entire universe. To help find out just who can and who can't use for this task, the face eaters have an interesting ability. If they bite some who can represent them, that person doesn't turn into another eater. Instead they turn into something like this."

Amy – "Wait, you're saying we're such a person? That you're a representative for him?"

Evil Amy – "Umm, no. I wish I was but he sort of screwed up with me a little. When I was bitten, he had his attention on something else. He let the face eater conversion process take hold of me for too long and now I'm just not human enough to do the job. You are though."

Amy – "What!? You think I'm going to help him? Hell no! I'd rather be dead."

Evil Amy, with a smile – "There'll be no killing of you. You're just too valuable."

Amy – "He's obviously twisted your mind."

Evil Amy – "Honey, my mind was twisted a long time before he came along. Hell, you can probably understand why. Our lives have actually been quite similar. Consider me your future."

Amy, glaring at her twin – "We're nothing alike."

Evil Amy – "Oh really? You turned yourself into a rat. Me too. I stayed a rat longer though. Then I got into dark magic, which you haven't done yet. Also, in your dimension, my old dealer's been killed so I'll admit you're less likely to fall for that trap. But as far as I can see, we're exactly the same. Only our situations have been different. I stay a rat a little longer, I'm evil. You stay a rat a little less and you're a goody too shoes. Or maybe I'm just slightly darker and you're more naïve. Just wondering, do you hate the hell out Willow too?"

Amy – "Uhhh, a little, I guess. But that doesn't prove anything."

Evil Amy, laughing – "I should tell you about all the crazy stuff I did to her. Firstly I turned her into a guy and that was sort of fun then – "

Amy – "Are you insane!?"

Evil Amy – "What?"

Amy – "Hello! I'm not being friendly with you here but you're acting all girlfriendly with me. Get it through your head. We're nothing alike and I'm not going to help you to kill everyone."

Evil Amy, rolling her eyes – "It's not about killing everyone. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what any of this is about."

Amy – "Then tell me, what's it about?"

Evil Amy – "It's about everything. It's about eternity. We're literally going to change the rules which reality works by. Did you know that the universe can go on forever? Most of the scientists you'd ask would say that's impossible. They'd say that all the stars would eventually burn out and all energy would be completely converted into heat and bla-bla-bla. None of it's true. I've touched omniscience and I know it will go on forever. And that's purely on a physical side too, totally ignoring the possibility of divine intervention to save existence. For the rest of time, people will be born, will grow old and die. The slightly bad will get thrown down to hell and the slightly good will be lifted up to heaven in some sort of sick cosmic filtration system. What's worse is, when you boil us all down, we're all the same. All of us can be good or evil. We can all change too. We can all love and we can all hate. Heaven and hell doesn't make any sense at all."

Amy stared as Evil Amy rambled on as if traumatized by a past experience.

Evil Amy, with an unhinged grin – "Hey, you wanna see hell? It'll open your eyes to everything."

Amy heard the sudden roar of a fire as bright light and warmth washed over her from behind. She spun around and saw a fire rimmed portal on the other side of the room. Next to it stood a cloaked figure with dark obscuring clouds flowing around him.

Evil Amy, softly – "He's here."

Amy – "Who's that?"

Evil Amy, sounding like she's in love – "That's Mister Shadow. He controls the face eaters. He'll save us all."

Amy – "And that portal goes to hell?"

Evil Amy, walking towards the dark figure – "It goes home."

Mister Shadow reached out a hand towards the human Amy and she felt herself compelled to walk forwards.

Mister Shadow, with a voice that sounded like two gravestones grinding together – "It's time you came home, Amy."

Amy broke through the compulsion and laughed.

Amy – "I don't think so. Fuck you."

Evil Amy stopped in her tracks and looked back at her twin. Human Amy seemed to be getting blurry around the edges. It seemed she had drunk one of the take-me-home potions when her twin wasn't looking.

Before either evil fiends thought to do anything about this, Amy vanished from view altogether.

Evil Amy – "Well… crap."

O-O-O-O

Back at Atlantis

Shepard – "Elizabeth, it's been an honor."

Weir, trying to smile – "The honors all mine."

Shiva – "Enough of that. We've got four spare potions to take people back home. All the slayers who can drink get one. That's not negotiable. So who else should get one? They've got to be people who can make a difference."

Ronon – "That rules me out, I'm just a grunt."

Shepard – "Me too. But I'm fine with that. I enjoy a good fight."

Teyla, to Shepard – "That's not true. You're an effective leader too."

Shiva – "We've already got plenty of those. How about that Zelenka guy?"

Ronon – "And McKay. I hate to admit it but those two can do miracles together."

Weir – "You should take Beckett. He's got the most experience dealing with wraith biology. We can't afford to lose him."

Harmony – "What about Tara? Isn't she really important?"

Shiva, with a frown – "Harmony, I know she's your friend but Tara's not important if we don't have Atlantis. She… hey, what's Tara doing?"

Tara was standing in the spot where Amy disappeared. For some unknown reason, Tara's eyes were glowing electric blue. In front of her, the podium rose out of the floor and she pressed her hands down on it.

Around her, the air started glowing softly as the towers of Atlantis split open.

Shiva – "How is she doing that?"

Harmony, grinning widely – "I guess she doesn't need the scythe anymore!"

The tower cannons fired upon the mirror gate, turning it reflective and tearing a hole between dimensions.

O-O-O-O

Seeing the mirror gate activated, the enemy ships descended upon it and let loose with crisscrossing fire. The alliance defenders dove for the mirror gate too, many making it in before the relatively slow moving Atlantis. Left and right, ships were ventilated and vector thrusters were blasted off. Some ships made it into the gate regardless, due to sheer momentum.

Energy beams raked across Atlantis, tearing it open in parts. Most of the crew had retreated towards the core of the ship so casualties theoretically should have been minimal.

Atlantis slipped into the mirror gate still intact and the eaters launched as many missiles and bullets after her as they could.

That was until the mirror gate stopped working and they found themselves doing little more than etching lines across its chalk white surface.

The enemy ships broke off pursuit and slowly reorganized themselves back into a defensive formation to clean up any stranded Alliance forces.

Unfortunately for them, an engineer had taken the time to strap one of Atlantis' 120 megaton nuclear devices to the mirror gate, to go off once they had gone through.

Within a second, a ten kilometer wide artificial sun sprung into existence. The blast caused the artificial gravity system of the small planet to fail and the atmosphere heaved and spewed away.

On the other side of the planet, the Operative watched this from the safety of a frigate transport. Many other spaceships watched too. The molten husks of eater driven spaceships could be seen through the thinning atmosphere as tiny glowing specks of light rising over the horizon of the now dead world.

The Operative, smiling to himself – "Now let's see what trouble we can get up to."

O-O-O-O

Back on Atlantis everyone slowly recovered from the disorientating effects of the mirror gate. Some people recovered quicker than others.

Tara, with full game face on – "I did it!"

People stared at her but she didn't seem to notice. Instead she did a jump of triumph.

Tara – "Whooo!"

John Shepard looked over to Shiva, who looked back at him somewhat irked.

Shiva – "It wasn't me! I didn't order anyone to turn her! And how did she do that, anyway? Vampires can't do that sort of magic. This doesn't make any sense."

Before Shepard could loudly demand to know who turned Tara, Zelenka came running along, out of breath and full of urgency.

Zelenka – "Didn't you get my message about the mirror gate?"

Weir – "What message?"

Zelenka – "As long as that jammer is working, we can't send commands to the mirror gate."

Shepard – "But we just went through it. It was working fine."

Zelenka, shaking his head – "No, it wasn't. Without telling it which dimension to jump to, we don't know which dimension we'll arrive in. We might not have even changed dimensions."

The soldier on sensors – "We've got bogeys!"

Another soldier – "Shields, warp drive and weapons are still offline."

Soldier on sensors – "They're sending small units towards us. Probably fighters. And some of there are … warping away?"

Shepard – "Get me a visual. I want to know who we're up against."

Soldier on communications – "They're hailing us. They're using radio."

Weir – "Patch it through. Let's all hear it."

The soldier on communications fiddled with some switches until static was heard across the PA system in the gate room. Then a grizzled voice spoke.

The radio - "This is Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica. Please identify yourself."

Shepard, with a slight smirk – "Here we go again."

O-O-O-O

Back on earth.

Amy found herself in a secure concrete bunker on the edge of Sunnydale and warming her hands around a cup of hot chocolate that she hadn't asked for..

Amy – "I can't believe it. He's got an alternate version of me working for him."

Around the room were a few faces she knew and a few she didn't. Some of the faces featured twice.

QueenBuffy – "You actually saw the big bad?"

Amy, nodding – "Yeah but I couldn't pick him out of a lineup. He was wearing this grim reaper like cloak and he had this black smoke stuff floating around him."

DemonFaith – "So you've got nothing? Did they say anything that could be useful?"

Amy, shaking her head – "I don't think so. The other me was sort of crazy. I, umm… I know it might not help but I know the bad guys name. She called him Mister Shadow."

The undead version of Buffy gasped as a chill ran down her spine.

QueenBuffy – "Did you say Mister Shadow? He didn't have an impossible low voice, did he?"

Amy, straightening up in her chair – "Yeah, he did."

QueenBuffy, obviously disturbed by this news – "But that's impossible."

HumanBuffy – "You know this guy? Please tell me you haven't slept with him too."

QueenBuffy, obviously disturbed by this turn of events - "In a way. The knowing part, not the sleeping with part."

VampWillow - "He's from Fifth element."

HumanWillow - "Huh? The fifth element? Are we talking Aether or a spiritual realm or something?"

VampWillow, giving her alternate a weird look – "No, I'm talking about Fifth element the movie. It's got Milla Jovovich in it. You know, martial arts, aliens, guns, explosions and a giant celestial ball of darkness that calls itself mister shadow."

HumanBuffy – "You're telling us that the big bad is ripping off a movie from your world?"

QueenBuffy – "You mean you don't have fifth element here? We should bring a copy over, you'll love it. Though, perhaps not as much as me. You'd probably just sit there all repressed about how much you like skinny redheads wearing next to nothing."

VampWillow, laughing – "I totally didn't think of that but you're right, she would."

HumanBuffy – "So he's ripping off some movie. Great. We're back to square one."

DemonFaith – "I hate square one."

Amy – "You did hear the part where I mentioned the fiery portal to hell, right?"

HumanBuffy – "Well, yeah but no one really believes it literally goes to hell, do they? We've already dealt with enough hell dimensions to take the mention of hell with a grain of salt."

VampWillow, a little more concerned – "We have gone to every dimension we can and none of them were hell dimensions."

QueenBuffy – "Maybe he's just converted one of our dimensions into a hell dimension. Like I hear Buddy's is pretty bad right now."

DemonFaith, listening to a voice inside her head – "Hold on, Dawn has something to say."

Faith changed shape into Dawn who didn't fit Faith's leather jacket at all.

DemonDawn, pulling down the bottom of her jacket – "Hi again. Umm. About Hell. Hell is a real place. But you can't just access it like any other dimension. You need very specific spells for that. That doesn't mean it's impossible though. If this guy really is accessing hell then this puts an entirely new type of scary on the situation."

HumanBuffy – "But what's the likelihood of that?"

DemonDawn – "Higher than you'd think. Lucifer may run a tight ship but when you're dealing with hell and its sheer scale, you're bound to have problems. Jailbreaks are quite common. Also, occasionally you get demons from hell coming up here and causing trouble too. That's hardly ever fun."

Amy – "Also, crazy me said something about being touched by omniscience. I thought that was sort of weird."

DemonDawn groaned – "That cannot be good."

VampWillow – "Why not? Wouldn't omniscience be a good thing?"

DemonDawn – "You'd think so but no. The human mind isn't built to deal with raw omniscience. Few are. When you put too much information into a human mind too fast, it reprograms it and not in a good way either. One of names Lucifer went by was torchbearer. He'd shine divine knowledge upon people, filling them up with all manner of dark and terrible things. They'd get piles of knowledge but lack the context and wisdom to process it properly. Also, he'd leave a few important facts out. But it was a damn quick way to get followers for his cause."

HumanBuffy – "So how would someone who's not Lucifer do that?"

DemonDawn – "Umm. You could use technology, like those dollhouse guys. But I'm guessing this guy would be using more mystical methods. There are plenty of brainwashing spells and psychic powers he could've used. Or maybe he's modified an artifact like the axis of Pythia. We'd really need to nab one of his followers to find out."

SuckBuffy – "Since we're on the subject, I can totally brainwash people."

VampWillow, laughing about it – "It's true. She used to do it to me. It was completely unnecessary."

SuckBuffy, somewhat defensively – "I didn't know that at the time. I thought you were straight."

DemonDawn, with a frown – "If this big bad really can access hell then we're in more trouble than we thought. We would be stuck in this quarantine but he'd have a way around it."

HumanBuffy – "But wouldn't the powers that be figure that out?"

DemonDawn considered this then nodded in a so-so way.

DemonDawn – "Eventually. But it'd take time. They are a bureaucracy after all. You might have noticed the cracker job they've done with this quarantine already. Thirteen dimensions does not a quarantine make."

Amy – "Just a thought. Dawn, you seem to know a lot about Lucifer. You don't suppose it could be him, do you? Because the feeling I got of that guy was just wrong. I would totally buy him being the devil."

DemonDawn, with cold eyes – "No, it's not him. And don't even joke about that."

HumanBuffy, a little apologetically – "It's a touchy subject with her. You know how it is. Daddy issues."

Amy – "Huh?"

DemonDawn – "You honestly don't want to know."

O-O-O-O

End of Episode

Continued in next chapter.


	65. 19a First strike

Episode 19, chapter A : First strike

O-O-O-O

Oberon whimpered pitifully as a giant horse needle pierced her arm and a foul drug was injected into her bloodstream.

In the distance, the younger Xander watched and gave her a supportive smile as she took her "medicine."

The queen of underworld crept up behind him and gave him a surprise hug, causing him to yelp.

Xander – "Buffy, can you stop doing that?"

Buffy – "Nope. So how's the patient doing?"

Xander - "Good. Great actually. If anything, since we've started giving her the anti-slayer drug, she's gotten stronger."

Buffy, looking at him askew - "Really?"

Xander - "They think she's cheating on the strength tests and using her telekinesis."

Buffy grinned but looked a little regretful too.

Buffy – "I'm sorry about all this. I didn't know she was that bad. We really should've given her a vacation when I first brought her in. But Giana said she was stable enough and I … I didn't want to risk losing a weapon. I didn't know when the face eaters would turn up."

Xander – "That's forgivable, I guess. Umm, no one's given me a straight answer about this vacation thing yet. Is she going to become entirely sane? Because I've gotten used to insane Oberon."

Buffy, with an unhelpful shrug – "Maybe. It can cause some dramatic personality changes."

Xander – "What if she stops liking me? That'd be really awkward."

Buffy smirked – "I've got a few ideas I'm sure Willow would like."

Xander – "Not helping."

Buffy – "Oh come on. This is me you're talking to. I know you like Willow."

Xander, finding himself smiling a little – "I'm trying to have a serious contemplative moment here and you're not going to let me, are you?"

Buffy – "Xander, I doubt she'll dump you. You're a catch."

Xander – "Thanks. That makes me feel better."

Buffy – "But if she does dump you, I am totally going to hit that ass."

Xander – "Can you stop hitting on me every few sentences?"

Buffy – "I wasn't! I was talking about her. You go without saying. Hey, how does Oberon feel about you feeding off the rest of us sucks?"

Xander – "She doesn't trust most of them. I won't lie, it does seem to be putting a strain on our relationship."

Buffy – "Hmm. Well, there's something I should probably show you then."

Buffy, calling to Oberon – "I'll just be borrowing Xander for a few minutes. Be back soon."

Buffy held Xander by the arm and smoke exploded around him. When Buffy let him go he was in an entirely different room.

Xander, coughing a little – "What the hell? What just happened? Did we just teleport?"

Buffy, somewhat dramatically – "Welcome, Alexander Harris, to the temple of the succubae."

Xander looked around the huge circular room that reeked of sex and bleach. There was a stage in the middle and widely spaced chairs facing towards it.

On the stage was some sort of large bronze bed sized altar where Heidi and FutureBuffy were waiting for them. Buffy was wearing some stretch jeans and a white T shirt while Heidi was wearing one of her "feeding suits", a shiny red one piece dress with a plunging neckline and a way too short skirt. Xander could see from here that her panties were made out of the same shiny red material her dress was. The high heel platform shoes she was wearing were both absurd and sort of hot at the same time.

Around the room were various people doing their best to sanitize the hell out of the room with hoses, scrubbing brushes and copious amounts of cleaning products.

Xander, as Buffy led him towards the stage – "Oh-kay. What the hell is this place?"

Queen Buffy ignored Xander and looked upon Heidi with obvious distaste.

Queen Buffy, to her twin – "You brought the nazi along?"

FutureBuffy, frowning a little – "I didn't think you'd mind."

Queen Buffy, with a sigh as she sat on the altar with them – "Fine, whatever. Come on, Xander. Sit."

Xander frowned but did as he was told. As he sat upon the bronze bed, he felt himself connected to something magical and it felt rather nice.

Xander – "What is that?"

Heidi, grinning – "It's nice, isn't it?"

Xander – "Yeah but what is that?"

Queen Buffy – "What you're feeling is unadulterated sex energy. It's what us sucks live on. The physical aspect of sex isn't actually important to us. The energy that's released during sex or even when someone is in lust, it allows us to metabolize nutrients and animates our flesh. So, yes, we still need to eat a little. Unfortunately for Xander, we only absorb the masculine aspect of this energy. So while sex with girls doesn't hurt, guys work so much better."

Xander, not getting it – "So what is this?"

Queen Buffy – "This entire room funnels sex energy into this focal point, where we're sitting. What you're feeling is just the byproduct of idle naughty thoughts by the cleaning crew. Of course, if we started fooling around, I'm sure the level of lust in the room would rise and then you'd really feel some juice."

Heidi – "I'm all for that by the way."

Queen Buffy – "No one asked you."

Xander, a little confused – "It doesn't feel that…"

QueenBuffy – "It doesn't feel naughty? I know. This is lust in its most primal innocent state. It's not evil, just a natural part of life. So you get the idea behind this, right?"

Xander – "Yes, I think so. But I doubt Oberon would be interested in performing on stage. She's not an exhibitionist. Actually, neither am I."

Queen Buffy, smirking – "I didn't think you were. I just wanted you to understand the basic idea behind it. Now I'm going to tell you about what we've been researching recently."

Heidi, exuberantly – "Porn!"

Queen Buffy, unable to stop herself smiling – "That's right. Porn. We've finally worked out a way, an entirely safe way, to get the same effect this room gives us but with porn. Like here. Check this out."

Queen Buffy took a piece of paper out of her small shoulder bag and gave it to Xander. When he saw what it printed on it, he couldn't help but stare.

Xander, tilting his head – "Is that… is that Bonny?"

Heidi, laughing – "Oh my god. It is! Wow, she's got great abs."

Queen Buffy – "Anyone who looks at this picture and thinks lustful thoughts about her will be sending a small amount of sex energy, through various means, straight to Bonny. If we had enough people doing that, she wouldn't have to feed off men at all. It even works between dimensions."

Future Buffy, taking a peek at the picture – "You're kidding."

Queen Buffy – "Not at all. Video works even better though. By this time next year, not only will we be free of the continual need to screw men left, right and center but it'll also be a great new source of revenue for us."

Future Buffy – "Hold on. What if no one wants to see us naked?"

The others gave her funny looks.

Future Buffy – "Seriously. What if we're no good? I can't imagine people would want to see me having sex."

Queen Buffy fished around in her shoulder bag for a little bit and smiled as she pulled out a DVD case, which she handed to her twin. Future Buffy's eyes widened with shock and perhaps a little awe.

Future Buffy, scandalized – "You've already made a porno!? You didn't even talk to me first?!"

Queen Buffy, quick to explain – "That's not me in that video. It turns out in an alternate reality, we're a porn star who calls herself Krista Now. We're extremely popular."

Xander couldn't help but laugh at the mortified look on Future Buffy's face.

Xander – "Hey, did you heard about that alternate Faith being in a porno?"

Queen Buffy, proudly – "That was small time compared to this girl. She did it for a living."

Future Buffy – "I don't know what to say."

Heidi, taking the DVD off Future Buffy – "Does she do girl-girl?"

Future Buffy, looking a little ill – "I'm pretty sure she does."

Xander, curiously – "Have you talked to Willow about this?"

Queen Buffy, laughing – "Oh yeah, she wants to direct!"

Heidi, to Future Buffy – "We should totally watch this."

Queen Buffy took the DVD off Heidi and stuck it back in her bag.

Queen Buffy – "We're still using that for, uh, research."

Future Buffy sort of huddled in on herself and Heidi gave her a supportive hug around the shoulders.

Heidi – "Oh, don't be like that. You really are the most repressed person I know."

Future Buffy – "Considering who you know, that's not hard."

Queen Buffy – "You don't have to star in blue movies if you don't want to. But the rest of the girls seem keen on it."

Heidi – "She's right. You can keep biting me as much as you like."

Queen Buffy growled at Heidi and grabbed her somewhat roughly by the neck.

Queen Buffy, with an evil grin – "I missed lunch today. You don't mind, do you?"

Heidi seemed surprised but shook her head.

Heidi – "No, of course I don't mind."

Queen Buffy lifted one of Heidi's legs up and rested it over her shoulder.

Queen Buffy – "Tell me, Heidi. Where does baby me bite you?"

Heidi – "Normally on the shoulder. More recently, she's been biting me on the neck."

Queen Buffy, with one hand resting over Heidi's heart – "Letting her bite your neck is a sign of trust. So do you trust me too?"

Heidi – "I trust you to be you."

Queen Buffy, sexily – "Where do you think I'm going to bite you?"

Heidi's eyes widened as her Queen kissed her gently on the ankle then moved slowly down, peppering soft kisses along her calf, behind her knee and lower still.

Then without warning, she sank her fangs deep into the tender flesh inside her thigh.

Heidi, in exclamation – "Ugh, fuck me!"

Xander and FutureBuffy both gasped as they felt the power from the altar flare upwards dramatically.

Heidi, arching her back – "Oooh baby, this hurts sooo good. You've got to try this."

FutureBuffy, a little squeamishly – "No, that's okay, you can keep all that fun to yourself."

Heidi laughed with euphoria and rubbed her free leg against Xander's chest.

Future Buffy, apologetically to Xander – "She can get a bit frisky sometimes."

Xander, as Heidi rubbed her shoe softly against his jaw – "I'd noticed."

There was a small explosion of smoke which quickly revealed Bonny, a red haired succubus that was looking more and more like Willow as time went on.

Bonny – "Buffy! There you are. I've been looking all over for you."

Queen Buffy extracted herself from between Heidi's legs with a rare grace and gave Bonny a quizzical look.

Bonny – "It's on."

Future Buffy – "What's on?"

Bonny – "IT is on."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse.

Buffy was double timing it through the myriad halls of stargate control in search of someone when her cellphone chirped for attention. She put it to her ear and heard who she was looking for.

Faith, sounding a little different – "Buffy. I have one of your friends tied to your bed. Come alone or there will be consequences."

Buffy blinked a few times after Faith hung up then quickly turned around and ran for her temporary quarters at the SGC.

O-O-O-O

Buffy's temporary room at the SGC.

Faith did indeed have someone tied to Buffy's bed. They also had a gag in their mouth to stop them screaming.

Faith, monologuing – "You know, I've met another Faith. They were like me except for being from another dimension. But they weren't me. They were just a touch different. It took some time but we eventually figured out where our lives stopped being exactly identical. See, when I was a kid, I wanted a dog. I begged and begged my mom for one but she wouldn't allow it. But the other me, she begged and begged and she got one. So I thought, hey, she must've had a better life than me. That's probably why she's not an evil bitch. Turns out, having a dog wasn't what it was cracked up to be. The first day she got it, it crapped on her bed. Then a few weeks later, it got ran over by the school bus. There were little doggy bits all over the road and she bawled her eyes out. But that's not all. On the bus were all her friends, laughing at her. What a pack of assholes, right? It's both tragic and infuriating. The worst of both worlds."

Faith thought about this for a few seconds then kept on going with her monologue.

Faith - "The weird thing is, that little event didn't push her towards the dark side. Not that she's vanilla or anything. Like both of us got turned on the first time we saw that scene in Silence of the lambs where that girl is down the hole and she's putting the lotion on her skin. Sure, she's kinky but she's not as dark as I am. But maybe not. Maybe, despite the different things that happened to us, we're still exactly the same. Maybe she's just waiting to pop and then the killing starts. What do you think?"

The door swung open so fast it broke off its hinges, revealing a pissed off Buffy on the other side.

Faith, calmly smiling – "And here's the girl of the hour."

But Buffy wasn't attacking yet. She was just downright confused at what she saw on the bed.

Buffy – "Riley?"

Riley muffled something out but Buffy couldn't figure out what.

Buffy, to Faith – "What the hell, Faith?"

Faith, taking the gag out of Riley's mouth – "What? I can't play a prank?"

Riley was shirtless and tied to Buffy's bed in a spread eagle position by rope.

Riley, relatively calm – "Can someone untie me?"

Buffy – "What are you doing here? And Faith, why the hell did you tie him to my bed?"

Faith, untying Riley – "He sort of asked for it."

Buffy – "You… what?"

Faith – "Would you believe this guy still thinks you're gay? And I've figured out why."

After Faith untied one of his hands, he did his best to untie his other hand since Faith didn't seem to be in any hurry to untie the rest of him.

Faith – "You know that time I possessed you?"

Buffy, with a groan – "Yes. And yes, I know you had sex with Riley."

Faith, pleased with herself – "I don't like to brag but apparently I'm awesome in bed. At least compared to you. You're too lovey dovey and not enough hokey pokey."

Buffy, feeling insulted – "Hey, I like… hokey pokey."

Faith – "He's not getting that I don't give a crap about him. I just did it cos I thought it'd be funny as hell. Somehow in his crazy man brain, he figured you had to be a total stamp licker because you're not as wild as me. And since I'm crazy awesome in the sack, I'm obviously only into guys."

Riley, having just untied his other hand – "But you are into guys! You brag about how many guys you've been with."

Faith, with a smirk – "Guys are easy. They're always up for it too. But girls are hard. I can count how many girls I've had with one hand. Funny thing is, I prefer them. You messed up, chump. You thought I was the straight one when that's Buffy. You thought Buffy had a torch for me. Nup, other way around. I'm into her."

Riley stopped untying his feet to give Faith a sanity questioning look.

Buffy – "Actually, she's sort of right. You really are an idiot, Riley. But this isn't the time for this. It's on."

Riley – "What's on?"

Faith – "IT is on?"

Buffy – "Yes, that's what I said. It's on."

Faith and Buffy left the room quickly, leaving Riley to finish untying himself and without explaining his presence at the SGC.

O-O-O-O

VampVerse.

Phoenix, Dawn's alternate from the sex-changed dimension, banged on a door, made his way inside and then instantly turned around when he saw what was happening on the other side.

Phoenix, yelling at the door he just went through – "Don't stop on my account. I just thought you'd want to know it's on."

Buddy, stopping what he was doing – "What?"

Lara – "It's on!? Really?"

Phoenix – "That's right. So, umm, finish up or whatever."

Then Phoenix slipped out the door and ran to be somewhere else.

Fox, with a groan – "Worst timing ever."

O-O-O-O

VampVerse, , the portal room.

Queen Buffy twirled her extravagantly ornate doubled bladed battle axe.

Willow – "Nice axe."

Queen Buffy – "Isn't it, just. Yeah, I like my battle axes. If they get blunt, you just turn them over and hey! Another blade! It's awesome. Though, some have hammers or spikes on the other end. Those can be good too."

Bonny didn't seem so cheerful. Instead, she was squeezing the living daylights out of a stress ball in one of her hands. She had three machete like swords strapped to her back in holsters.

In fact, almost everyone Willow could see was heavily armed and some were wearing a considerable amount of body armour too.

They were readying themselves for war. Most were doing last minute weapons checks, stealing kisses or doting over their vampire children. Some seemed to be waiting with infinite patience, though Willow knew some of those were either fighting inner demons or didn't have a clue what they were going to walk into.

She could see Spike in the distance, surrounded by his own little flock of groupies. Spike himself looked a little tired. Willow smiled a little bit when Buffy told her about all the slayers Spike had fought with but not actually gotten around to killing. Apparently he's more miss than hit.

She could also see the "Future crew" where the eye-patched Xander seemed to be trying his best to put Fred at ease.

Willow focuses a little and eavesdropped on them for a bit.

Xander – "I know you might not feel up to fighting on the frontline but just remember this. You're stronger than the eaters. You're quicker too. And although Illyria wouldn't like me saying this, I think you might be smarter than her too. You're definitely sneakier. And you'll have an entire army backing you up, all the way. Actually, make that several armies."

She spotted the female version of Angel, a cold fish in hot leather. Behind her were the rest of the gender bender refugees as they made their way into the crowd.

Fox really stood out. He was wearing jeans, army boots, a shiny anti-stake metal plate over his heart and dog tags around his neck. In his hands, he had perhaps the largest, nastiest looking sword Willow had ever seen. He looked like he belonged in some sort of messed up boy band.

Willow found herself admiring his muscular form but forced herself to stop when she remembered who he was supposed to be.

Careful not to ogle too much, she eavesdropped in on what the genderbenders were saying.

Fox, talking to Phoenix – "Nix. If anything happens to us, you better take care of the girls."

Phoenix – "Oh come on. You know I would."

Lexx, poking Fox in the chest – "But nothing better happen."

FutureBuffy laughed when she saw Fox's sword.

FutureBuffy – "Wow, nice sword."

Fox, with a wink – "You can touch it if you want."

FutureBuffy, smirking – "The team is this way."

Fox, calling after her – "Hey, I showed you mine but you didn't show me yours."

Buddy kissed Lara one last time and told her to keep an eye on Willard before catching up to Fox.

Queen Buffy brushed by Willow on her way up to the podium, which had a microphone connected to the PA system.

On the podium, Buffy tapped the microphone and fuzz crackled out from it.

Buffy – "Hi everyone. The time is almost upon us. But first, there is some new information that you should all be aware of. We've just gotten a medical report on the effects of face eater bites. It seems they don't have to bite you in the face. A bite to the face causes near instantaneous conversion but anywhere will do. The SGC have figured out a counteragent for it and have given us it too. It's the murky yellow liquid that have just been added to our field medic kits."

Buffy took in a breath and she looked down at her notes.

Buffy, reading from her notes – "Lysette's tac team is going to be responsible for securing the slayer line in this new dimension. That is a priority mission. Studies of face eater remains suggest that they are not necessarily undead at all. It's theorized that if the current slayer is turned into a face eater, a new slayer will not be called. They can effectively end a slayer line by doing this. We cannot allow that to happen. So if you see Lysette or any of her team, make sure they're still on mission. That's everything new you need to know. Now let's get this freak show on the road!"

The crowd cheered, eager to fight.

Behind Buffy, their stone circle hummed with power as a dimension portal formed in its center.

Buffy gave Willow a wink then joined in the mob rushing towards the portal.

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse.

Buffy and Faith stood in front of a small mirror gate. Each of them had a simple but shiny broadsword and behind them stood around a thousand uniformed soldiers with all manner of modern weaponry.

In front of them, the mirror gate turned reflective and they waited for the go-ahead.

A uniformed specialist, next to the mirror gate – "We've got confirmation. Slayers, go!"

Buffy jumped through first, followed by Faith.

On the other side was a scene they weren't expecting.

It was quiet. Deathly quiet. It was also very dark. Most of the light in the room came from the softly glowing mirror gate.

They were inside a mostly collapsed building. There was still enough room to move around in despite it being full of slayers.

One of the slayers put fingers to her mouth, to motion silence.

An unearthly shriek shook through the house from outside. It was from something very loud and probably very large.

Human Buffy put her radio to her mouth and whispered into it.

Buffy – "Hold off on those men. We're assessing the situation."

A slayer with black camo paint under her eyes beckoned them with a hand signal and they quietly sneaked over. The slayer moved away from her spot so Buffy and Faith could look through a hole in the wall.

What they saw outside looked like a giant twisted four legged crab. Eyes bulged out from along its legs and yet it didn't seem to have any eyes on its main body mass.

Faith – "Damn. What is … oh."

Buffy – "What?"

Faith – "Tell says it's a chaos maleficarium. Whatever that means…. Oh, okay. Basically, it's a big dumb animal that attacks anything it sees."

The creature shrieked and stomped off to attack something down the road.

A slayer, catching their attention – "Pssk."

That slayer gave them a similar "follow me" hand signal and they followed them to another part of the house.

This part had a large section of the outside wall missing, enough to see the outside world more fully.

Queen Buffy was waiting for them by the wall.

Queen Buffy – "As you can see, there's still some activity in Sunnydale."

They were on the outskirts of Sunnydale, near the base of some hills. They were still high enough to get a good look down at Sunnydale.

Smoke was wafting up from several fires and it seemed several more of those giant crabs were stomping around the city. Two seemed to be fighting each other. Aside from the monster crabs, it appeared to be quiet.

Faith – "I'm told the eaters wouldn't have made those maleficcy things. They're made with chaos magic. Strong chaos magic too. You can't order them around but they're good for distractions."

Queen Buffy – "I'm thinking we avoid them and let the soldier boys take them out with rockets."

Human Buffy – "Good plan. Should we bring the mirror gates through?"

Queen Buffy nodded, though they couldn't see that properly in the darkness.

Queen Buffy – "Just the mirror gates though. I want to keep the element of surprise for as long as possible. There is one problem though. Turokhan."

Human Buffy – "Turokhan?"

Queen Buffy – "Our Sunnydale had Turokhan underneath it, living in the underground city we took over. They're like the Neanderthal version of vampires. Real tough. Stupid but tough. It looks like a large part of Sunnydale has caved in. That means the Turokhan might have found a way out. Perhaps it would be better if we waited for day before we attack."

Human Buffy – "Sounds solid to me. But we should still pull out the mirror gates. They take time to set up. When day hits, we attack in force."

O-O-O-O

From the collapsed mansion, more than a hundred slayers snuck out in teams of ten to twenty each. Each team took off on a different vector.

Despite their numbers, they were surprisingly silent as they ran at speed. No one talked, no buckles rattled and it seemed like their feet weren't even hitting the ground.

For Buddy and Fox, this was more than a little surreal. This was their town but it was dead except for the distant shrieks of the giant monstrosities.

At least, that's what they thought.

In less than a minute, they found a large group of a people searching through some rubble.

Buddy – "Survivors."

Joke, whispering somewhat loudly – "Wait."

He ran closer and it seemed a few of the survivors had seen him.

Then they screamed and charged at him at a full sprint.

They weren't face eaters but he didn't think they were human anymore either.

Joke – "Zombies! Everyone, form a line. Protect the mirror gate."

Fox – "Zombies?"

One of the slayers who had brought a long bow launched three arrows from it at once. Each arrow got a headshot on a separate zombie but there were plenty more to replace them.

In the far distance, they heard more ravenous screams and saw a much larger crowd running in their direction.

Fox – "Good going, Buddy, you've pissed on a hornets nest."

Buddy, with a groan – "Sorry."

Joke – "They're just zombies. Hold the line and we'll be fine."

The first zombies reached the slayers and were struck down with swords, hammers, battle axes and even a solid steel spear one of the slayers brought along.

The zombie density grew rapidly and the slayers found themselves a little overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Heidi got her butcher knife like sword stuck in a zombie's head and kicked at the next zombie in line. The zombie flew back and took more zombies down with it. She considered that maybe she should be kicking them in the head instead of swinging a sword.

Heidi, yelling over the slathering zombies – "I thought zombies weren't supposed to attack other undead!"

Joke, looking bored as she poked zombies in the eye with her sword – "That's an old wives tale."

Kendra, stabbing zombies in the head with two long daggers – "Maybe we should retreat. I tink we could fight them better indoors."

Joke – "That plan has merit. Buddy, got any ideas where we should take this fight?"

Buddy – "I don't know. Let's just break into one of these stores. I don't think – Oww!"

Buddy shook off the zombie bit him on the leg then kicked their head off.

Fox, laughing inappropriately – "Is Buddy gonna turn into a zombie now?"

Buddy – "Of course, I'm not. Kendra's right, we need to move before that big crowd reaches us."

In the distance, the streets lit up as much of the large zombie horde turned into an undead bonfire. The sudden fire spread between the zombies fast and was helped along by survivors throwing down Molotov cocktails from on top of nearby buildings.

Most of the zombies attacking the slayers saw this and broke off their attack, somehow realizing that they were going to lose this battle with nothing to gain from it.

The slayers seemed more than a little surprised as the zombies broke off their attack. But they quickly recovered and went about chasing them down.

But Buddy and Fox stood there smiling, seeing an old friend throwing molotovs down on the crowd below. It was sort of beautiful in an apocalyptic way.

Fox – "Is that Oz?"

Buffy – "Oz?"

Buddy – "Yup, that's Oz, alright."

It seemed the zombies were particularly vulnerable to fire and lacked the sense to stop-drop-and-roll. By the time Buddy and Fox had run up the street, the entire zombie mob was efficiently killed off. Half the street was still on fire though.

Buddy, calling out – "Hey Oz!"

The female version of Oz and another survivor looked down on them from on top of a building and didn't know what to say. More survivors looked down on them from other rooftops too. It looked like all of them had been helping out with the zombie eradication too.

Standing next to Oz was another girl with short, ratty looking blond girl and she was waving at them sort of spastically.

The ratty blonde girl, way too high pitched – "More survivors!"

Oz, an absolutely adorable strawberry blonde – "Buddy? Fox? You're still alive?"

Buddy – "I could say the same thing about you, girl. Who's your friend?"

Oz – "Andrea. Who are your friends?"

Buddy – "That's a long story. We've been out of town for a while. Hey, when did the zombies turn up? And what's with those big ass crab things?"

Andrea, still way too high pitched – "The zombies turned up after the stoners left and the stoners left because of the crab things that I summoned. Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm a demon summoner. It's my thang."

Future Buffy, from behind Fox – "Oh my god."

Fox – "What?"

Buffy – "That's Andrew!"

Buddy – "You know them?"

Buffy – "I wish I didn't."

Buddy – "Oz, is there somewhere safe we can get you?"

Oz – "Sure. The Booth. We were just going back there."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later, their tactical team had snuck along to "The Booth", this world's version of "The Bronze."

Although it didn't look it, it was the most secure part of town. The vampires could spot snipers in buildings close by. The area was surrounded with lines upon lines of claymores and improvised petrol traps. Once inside the Booth, they were confronted by people wielding weapons not too dissimilar from their own. Their leader seemed to be a sublimely beautiful woman wearing thought provoking leathers.

Joke, when people pointed weapons at them – "What is this?"

Hot leather girl – "Why don't you tell us, vampire?"

Joke – "Wait, you're not human. What are you?"

Hot leather girl – "I'm a Valkyrie. Now what's your business here?"

Oz – "They're from another dimension. Remember me telling you about Buddy? This is him. He's brought help."

The Valkyrie – "I think we've got more than enough vampires already. Hold on, why are most of these vampires female?"

Buddy shrugged with a grin – "I'm popular with the ladies. Also more help is coming. Not just vampires but human soldiers too. We're reconnoitering right now but we'll bring them in proper when the sun comes up."

Valkyrie, judging Buddy's words – "I see."

Oz – "You can trust him."

Valkyrie – "You can never truly trust undead."

Buddy – "Well, if you feel that way. Trish, radio?"

Trish, a fellow teammate, gave him a walky talky and he mumbled something into it.

Buddy – "And… wait for it…"

An explosion of smoke appeared behind him but he wasn't surprised. The rest of the warriors in the room were though. From the smoke came two Buffys. One was smirking while the other one looked a little ill.

Human Buffy – "Can you warn me before you do that?"

Queen Buffy – "Oh, you get teleportation sickness too? You know there are these patches you can wear for that."

The Valkyrie glared at them – "What is this?"

The still somewhat queasy Buffy – "Hi. We heard there was some problem with a valkyrie? Is that her? Wow, do you go out in public in that get up?"

The human Buffy didn't know what the criteria were for becoming a Valkyrie but it probably involved needing to look hot in leather.

The Valkyrie was taken aback and looked down at what she was wearing then looked back at what she thought was nothing more than a human. But there was something about this girl she couldn't put her finger on. She actually seemed happy to be in an apocalypse.

Valkyrie – "You're human?"

Human Buffy – "That I am."

The Valkyrie, Oz and several others looked between Queen Buffy, future Buffy and the human version of Buffy with some confusion.

Oz – "Why are the three of them?"

Valkyrie – "That was going to be my question."

Human Buffy, giving the simple answer – "We're all from different dimensions. And there's four of us."

Queen Buffy – "Actually, we've found a fifth alternate. I'll tell you about her later."

The Valkyrie – "How many other worlds are involved in this?"

Queen Buffy – "Mostly just mine and my friend's here. But some of the other dimensions look promising."

In the distance, one of the giant crabs shrieked and the ground shook as part of Sunnydale caved in.

Valkyrie – "Normally, I would advise against bringing more soldiers here but we could do with the help."

Queen Buffy – "With those crabs? Or with Turokhan?"

Valkyrie – "No. The crabs aren't a problem as long as you avoid them. They don't have good long range vision. And the Turokhan left for LA two or so weeks ago. The stoners have avoided Sunnydale because of the crabs but now that the ground beneath us has started collapsing, they're coming back down the interstate highway in large numbers. We believe they're going to surround the town to stop evacuation. From what we can tell, we're one of the few pockets of resistance left in America."

Buddy – "Seriously? This is it?"

Valkyrie – "There are plenty of survivors. But they're either hiding or running."

Queen Buffy – "What can you tell us about those zombies? I've been told some strange things about them."

Valkyrie – "They're caused by a biological weapon. The face eaters started releasing it upon dense cities since they arrived. It's not up to horror movie standards though. It'll doesn't kill. But if you happen to die while infected then yes, you'll turn into a zombie."

Human Buffy – "Good to know. Hey, you want to help us set up a surprise for the eaters?"

Valkyrie, cautiously – "What did you have in mind?"

O-O-O-O

The sun rose slowly over Sunnydale, first peeking out between two hills in the distance and then slowly rising into the sky and shining down upon the ruined town.

In the sky, birds flew and chirped to each other, oblivious to human suffering.

Despite the still burning buildings and the slight smell of decay, it didn't seem very apocalyptic.

The face eaters had driven to Sunnydale in trucks, armored cars and more than a few military vehicles sporting guns. They hadn't breached Sunnydale just yet. They were still spending their time surrounding it.

In the night before, the zombies had fled the city and ran into the waiting arms of the face eaters who spent little time "upgrading" them.

The Valkyrie's forces laid out the last of their traps while the slayers helped build blockades and collect the last of the canned food from empty houses.

It was around this time when human Buffy realized there was something screwy going on.

HumanBuffy – "How are your vampires walking around during the day?"

QueenBuffy, with a smirk – "Magic."

HumanBuffy - "You neglected to mention this."

QueenBuffy, still smirking – "You neglected to ask."

The Valkyrie frowned as she considered this and perhaps also at how well the human and undead versions of Buffy got along so easily.

QueenBuffy – "When I was first turned, the watchers council gave me this big blocky golden medallion that would let me walk in direct sunlight. Funny thing was I wouldn't want to be seen wearing it in direct sunlight. It was so ugly."

Valkyrie – "I hope the soldiers you're bringing can handle themselves."

QueenBuffy – "Honestly, I'm not sure they can. But I'm bringing along some of my best to help level the playing field. Talking of which, here we go."

Both Buffy's watches chimed quietly together.

QueenBuffy – "If everything's going to plan, the attack should be underway right about now."

From above Sunnydale, everything seemed so still. Part of Sunnydale had caved in, forming a jagged, dark crescent on one side. From both ends of the dark crescent, the face eaters had formed a long semicircle to encapsulate the town and doom everyone inside.

That was until a few of the face eaters turned their heavily mutilated skulls skywards at a small black dot that was floating high above Sunnydale. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be falling.

The eaters couldn't squint or use binoculars but they didn't need to when they had anti-air guns.

A face eater manned an old but serviceable anti-air gun that was attached to the back of one of their trucks. He turned the safety off, cocked it and let loose with ten shots of heavy air burst rounds.

The experiment gave interesting results.

Several of the rounds exploded near the object and were clearly deflected off what looked like a force field.

It took the face eaters surprisingly little time to realize that whatever that thing was, they wanted it dead.

High caliber machine guns, rotary cannons and missile systems all turned towards the object that didn't appear on radar too well. Several of the face eaters tore tarpaulins off apache helicopters and went about getting them battle ready while tanks revved their engines and rolled out from large long haul trailers.

Then everything started exploding.

Human Buffy stared in quiet wonder as she saw a fiery explosion erupt from the edge of Sunnydale. Against all logic, the explosion moved sideways and curved through the face eater forces.

Missiles flew upwards and exploded in midair as invisible forces struck them down.

Then before it really started, it was over. There were no more explosions, no more rockets and no more gunfire.

The younger Xander, behind the Buffys – "Holy cow! I knew she was powerful but I didn't know she was THAT powerful."

The Valkyrie, a little scared – "What was that?"

Queen Buffy – "Not what. Who. And here she comes."

Oberon glided down through the air towards them and landed softly with a practiced grace. She was wearing a tight black leather suit that any Valkyrie would have proudly worn. Once she landed, she seemed to be expecting something and started frowning when it didn't arrive.

Oberon – "Did I do good?"

Queen Buffy, grinning – "Yes, Oberon. You did very well."

The younger Xander – "You did better than good. You kicked ass!"

Human Buffy, to her twin – "You neglected to tell us you had the evil version of Mary Poppins."

Queen Buffy, laughing again – "And you neglected to ask again."

Human Buffy – "I think you and me need to sit down and have a little talk."

Queen Buffy – "Sure but only after we get Oberon back home. She's not replaceable."

Before that could happen, lightning streaked across the sky and thunder boomed ominously as dark clouds formed at an alarming rate. The slayers looked up and realized that this was something new.

Oberon - "The clouds. They're doing funny things."

Human Buffy - "Maybe that's how they make more clouds."

O-O-O-O

End of chapter.

Continued in next chapter.


	66. 19b The darkness

Episode 19, chapter B : The darkness

Authors notes : Sorry Howard Russell, not much in the way of Wuffy/Billow goodness in this chapter. But I promise there'll be some in the next one.

O-O-O-O

Lightning cracked loudly in the clear sky above them. As some of them looked up, dark clouds formed at an alarming and obviously unnatural rate.

Oberon - "The clouds. They're doing funny things."

Human Buffy - "Maybe that's how they make more clouds."

Xander, as the clouds blotted out the sun – "I think we should get out of here now."

Lightning clapped again and rain fell from the dark clouds. Except it wasn't rain but blood.

Xander – "Is this blood?! Is it raining blood? That's never a good sign."

Queen Buffy gasped when she saw Oberon looking up with her mouth open.

Queen Buffy – "Oberon! Don't drink that! You don't know where it's been."

Oberon – "It's actually not that bad."

There was a loud boom which wasn't lightning at all but some claymores being set off in the distance. This was followed by gunfire and the sounds of fighting.

In the distance, Buffy heard a familiar British voice yell - "This is bollocks!"

Some soldiers and slayers were running in their direction, perhaps retreating from something.

One of the slayers, screaming – "They're falling out of the goddamned sky!"

Above that group running towards them, eaters teleported in and fell towards them from forty feet up in the air.

Oberon pushed out her hands and threw several away but some got through her attack and crushed those they fell on. A second later and they were torn asunder by Oberon's power. Once she started looking for them, she saw more and more face eaters falling from the sky and she tried her best to catch them all in a telekinetic version of whack-a-mole.

After a very short amount of time, they stopped teleporting within her visual range.

Human Buffy, obviously impressed - "Someone eats their wheaties."

There was a single pop sound as Oberon's flinched and stopped a very large bullet mere inches away from her forehead. She glared in the general direction of the frozen bullet and then let out a grunt as she tore a distant building into pebble sized bits with her mind.

Oberon – "I don't think that's all of them. I should help with the rest."

Queen Buffy – "No. You've done enough for now. Like I said before, we need you somewhere safe."

Human Buffy gasped and fell to her knees as she felt something indescribably evil passed through her.

Her eyes widened in shock but she realized she wasn't wounded. She was feeling this through her slayer radar and it seemed that the other slayers were too.

Human Buffy, feeling weak – "What is that?"

Darkness seemed to rise out of the ground, along with the smells of burnt plastic, paint fumes and cheese gone bad. Then earthier tones of upturned earth and rotting flesh assaulted their noses and even the vampires recoiled in disgust. It was like she was having a bad hallucinogenic trip in just her nose.

A mechanical, grinding heartbeat sound thudded up from the ground, followed the hands reaching up through loose dirt and between sewer grates. Buffy forced herself to stand and back away as zombie like creatures clawed their way up from the ground. But these abominations were never human to begin with but horribly mutilated things that nature wouldn't let live.

Xander - "This can't be good."

One of them let loose a terrible bay and Oberon frowned in thought.

Oberon – "Should I be killing these things?"

The horrible creatures didn't attack. Instead they seemed to be more like part of an exhibition for some twisted artist.

Flagpoles and twisted gargoyle like totems slowly broke upwards through the concrete, along with what seemed to be some sort of small pyramid with a throne on the top.

On that throne sat Mister Shadow.

HumanBuffy realized that she didn't just see him but could feel him on a spiritual level. His very presence seeped between the cracks in her psyche. She had seen a lot in her lifetime but this felt different. This felt dangerous. It scared her and it made her feel sick. But she wasn't going to run just yet.

Queen Buffy – "Oberon, THAT guy you can kill."

Oberon thrust out her arms towards Mister Shadow and strained but nothing happened. She tried again and her frustration quickly turned to fear.

Mister Shadow rose off his throne and seemed to float down the steps towards them.

Mister Shadow, with his low and thundering voice – "And now you all die."

With little thought involved, he baseball pitched a fireball at Oberon. Xander spun her around and he caught it in the back. It vaporized him as it exploded. The shockwave tumbled HumanBuffy over and almost knocked her out.

She struggled to get back onto her feet but found herself too weak to do even that.

Mister Shadow held out his hands and a pack of slayers were blown away with incredible force. Some of them seemed to be tossed into outer space.

Arrows thudded into him but he gave them no heed. Instead, he laughed a distorted grumbling barking sound.

Queen Buffy, where Human Buffy couldn't see her – "Give it EVERYTHING!"

Gunfire lit up and the sky seemed to become full of slayers pouncing at Mister Shadow from all directions.

He let loose a shockwave which seemed to blow all his troubles away, except for HumanBuffy. But she didn't think she was in any position to be a problem.

He turned towards her and she could feel his cold glare from behind his hood.

Her blood turned to ice as he floated towards her like a ghost with the air around him shimmering like a mirage.

HumanBuffy, trying to smirk and failing – "I thought you'd be taller."

Mister Shadow, with a bone gratingly deep voice – "You? What are you doing here? I know you. Your soul is a cavern of lies."

More face eaters fell from the sky and many of them weren't human but turned animals.

A distant slayer, screaming in panic – "Bears! We got fricken bears!"

But Buffy wasn't distracted by this. She was way too busy being scared out of her wits by Mister Shadow, he seemed content to study her like an ant under a microscope.

Something large flew over head and took up most of the sky. That was enough to distract Buffy. It distracted Mister Shadow too.

Both of them looked up to see Atlantis hovering above them, but upside down.

O-O-O-O

Inside Atlantis.

In Atlantis, the only reason they weren't falling face first towards the ground was because of artificial gravity.

Tara – "What on earth is that!?"

The gate room's walls had opened up, giving them a panoramic view of the battlefield above them. They could see what looked like a giant brown circle made out of some sort of blight. It was slowly expanding, shriveling up plants and peeling paint as it grew.

It also worked quite well as an aiming sight. In the direct middle was a black dot called Mister Shadow.

Tara brought them in closer and alarms went off.

One of the engineers at a laptop – "We're losing power! We're going to fall from the sky."

The tips of several towers had passed through into Mister Shadow's radius of blight and had started turning a dirty, mottled red before their eyes.

Shepard – "Tara, pull us back!"

Tara – "I can't! We're caught on something."

Shepard – "Try shooting that asshat then!"

O-O-O-O

Back on the ground.

Mister Shadow looked from Buffy to Atlantis and then back again to Buffy.

Mister Shadow – "You might want to start running now."

Buffy blinked at him a few times then realized that this was actually a good suggestion.

Buffy started running, already out of breath. She kept running past slayers and face eaters engaged in mortal combat. As she kept running, she could feel energy flow back into her legs. In fact, she could feel her slayer powers return. She hadn't realized that she had been missing them when Mister Shadow appeared but she had been.

A brightly glowing drone flew out sideways from Atlantis and homed in towards Mister Shadow. But it exploded in midair before it reached him and let out of bone shaking shockwave and flash of light that half blinded anyone looking in its direction. The sheer explosive power was staggering.

More drones flew out from Atlantis, this time in a huge nebulous swarm in an attempt to smother Mister Shadow.

Buffy kept running and the other slayers realized that they had better start too.

The face eaters weren't going to let them get away easily though and chased after them. One of them appeared to have some sort of laser rifle, which they used to scythe through several soldiers and dusted a slayer with.

Buffy rushed at it, not really sure what she was going to do once she got to it since she had dropped all her weapons.

Fortunately, she didn't have to do anything as a tank rumbled past and lit up with a heavy flamethrower. It fired back and the laser chewed large chunks out of the tank's armor. Before it's gun ran out of batteries, the face eater went down as it started boiling inside its shell like skin.

Mister Shadow struck more of Atlantis's drones out of the air and the night turned into a crazy sunned day.

Some soldiers on the tank seemed to be yelling something Buffy couldn't hear, apparently directing the slayers to jump on.

Many of other slayers were already jumping on and several of them lugged their wounded comrades along for the ride. The soldiers on the tank did their best to take down face eaters with machine guns and flame throwers. The main gun barrel had been bent out of shape and wasn't in any condition to fire anything.

Behind Buffy, the mid air explosions had stopped and the drones plunged into the ground and apparently disappeared. Almost immediately, the earth went into a tantrum and the earth heaved itself up and down in waves.

The soldiers and several others yelled out things that were probably important but Buffy still couldn't hear properly.

One of the soldiers waved over to her with a "come over here" type motion and she obeyed. She ran towards the tank and jumped for the back. One of the soldiers helped her on board just as the tank started driving again.

Behind the tank, the earth started caving in and Buffy heard one of the soldiers in the turret yell for the driver to go faster.

O-O-O-O

In Atlantis, power was back up as Mister Shadow's blight had faded away but Tara looked horrified as Sunnydale started collapsing beneath her.

Tara – "Did I do that?"

O-O-O-O

Back on the ground

One of the soldiers – "Hold on!"

Their tank followed another tank ahead of them as it drove straight through houses and across lawns as they made a beeline for the desert outside of Sunnydale. Buffy didn't know how fast she was going but she didn't know tanks could go this fast. It seemed they were outrunning the ground caving in and the eaters were nowhere to be seen.

Before she knew it, the houses and Astroturf lawns gave way to stark desert and the burnt husks of enemy vehicles.

She almost had to remind herself that this was actually safer.

The ground stopped collapsing after it claimed the last house and left a relatively circular crater.

The dark clouds overhead disappeared and the sun glared down upon the destruction that had been wrought in its absence.

Someone - "MEDIC!"

Another someone – "MEDIC!"

Almost everyone seemed to be hurt and Buffy felt guilty that she was unscathed. She didn't even have any grazes.

Mirror gates were quickly erected at various points around the crater. After a very short radio conversation, trauma surgeons and field medics rushed through the mirror gate to aid the wounded.

Willow, surprising Buffy – "Buffy? Are you okay?"

Buffy – "Wuh? Willow?! What are you doing here?"

As Willow had her goa'uld healing device on one hand and was in the process of healing a head wound a soldier had sustained. Willow gave Buffy a slightly weird look.

Willow – "Just helping out, I guess."

Buffy – "Right, uh. Yes, I'm fine. Don't mind me. Everyone else could do with your help though."

Willow nodded and focused more intently on what she was doing while Buffy groaned a little as she crawled off the back of the tank. She felt cramped in strange places.

Fred, startling Buffy too – "Are you okay?"

Buffy – "Oh, you. The blue girl. Yes, I'm fine. I don't need any medical attention."

Fred – "I saw Mister Shadow getting pretty close to you. Did he do anything to you? Did he say anything?"

Buffy – "Huh? Oh, nothing much. Just something to screw with my head. What was it? Oh yeah, he said my soul was a cavern of lies. Looking back at it, that was kind of an odd thing to say."

Fred possibly gave Buffy an odd look. It was sort of hard to tell with Fred in all her blueness.

Fred – "He said your soul was a cavern of lies? Seriously? Are you certain he said those exact words?"

Buffy – "I'm pretty certain. Why? Is that important? Umm. Please tell me my soul is not a cavern of lies. Because if it is, I'm not sure how I'd take that."

Fred – "I don't believe this. He ripped off Red versus Blue."

Buffy – "Red versus Blue?"

Willow - "It's a machinima."

At Buffy's blank look, Fred realized she'd have to explain more.

Willow – "A machinima is a video made using computer graphics from games. Red versus Blue uses Halo for graphics. It's on the internet."

Buffy, frowning – "First he rips off that Fifth Element and now some mushy-neemy thing? At least I think up my own lines… Mostly."

A slayer in full game face and holding her bloodied stomach – "We just got our asses handed to us. What the hell was that? A god?"

Buffy – "I have no idea."

Fred – "I know what it was. That was an Elder god. You saw that blight? That was a full on elder god dimensional infection. I don't know how he did it but he found some way to manifest in full corporeal form in less than a minute. It must tie in with the face eaters. They must be powering him somehow. That process should normally take years or even centuries. It doesn't explain why he's so small though. That part is a bit strange. Most Eldar gods are huge."

The bloodied slayer, walking off – "Oh great. An Elder god. Those are never fun."

Buffy, almost whispering to Fred – "Aren't you an Elder god?"

Fred – "With a soul. The soul part is important."

Buffy – "Can you tell me how he took away my slayer powers?"

Fred considered this and didn't seem pleased at what she thought up.

Buffy – "You know something, don't you?"

Fred – "I have a theory. You won't like it though."

Fred looked around to make sure no one was listening in. Almost everyone was too busy being wounded to do that though.

Fred, as if it meant something to Buffy – "We're going backwards in time."

Buffy - "Backwards in time?"

Fred – "Yeah. A lot backwards in time."

Buffy – "We're time traveling backwards in time?"

Fred – "Not exactly. Umm. Look, as an Elder god, I'm somewhat sensitive to certain things that a normal human wouldn't be. For instance, shifts in the time stream. I wasn't exactly sure why but all the dimensions that are trapped within this quarantine, they seem to be moving back in time. I think Mister Shadow is reaching back in time for something. The face eaters seem to be helping somehow. The more there are, the faster we go back in time."

Buffy – "So you're saying that we're not exactly going back in time. You're saying our dimensions are going backwards in time compared to other dimensions? Is that right?"

Fred – "Yes. That's it."

Buffy – "Oh. Why?"

Fred – "I have no idea. I don't know how far back in time we've gone so far. But if we go back far enough, we might run into problems."

Buffy – "How? We're not actually going back in time, remember?"

Fred – "Most people don't know this but there are certain laws of nature that don't exist in the past. For instance, if you took a slayer back in time, before the slayers existed, it's possible that they'd lose their powers."

Buffy blinked at Fred a few times as she tried to figure this out.

Fred – "And Mister Shadow is the driving force behind us going back in time. He's even warped the time stream around him. If you get to close to him then…"

Buffy – "My powers disappear. Oh crap. That's what happened? How am I supposed to slay him without my powers?"

Fred – "That's really not the problem we're facing here. Remember that thing about how we've got a bunch of vampires on our side? But they're only on our side because their slayer side makes them not so evil?"

Buffy – "You don't think…"

Fred, a little conflicted – "I might be wrong."

Buffy – "That is seriously not cool."

Fred – "And we don't even know why he wants to go backward through the time stream. It could be anything. It's probably something to do with the chaos wars. Maybe he's trying to bring the Elder gods back. That definitely wouldn't be good."

In the not so far away distance, Atlantis lowered itself to land, ready to take on passengers.

Buffy, with a huff of frustration – "Looks like our ride is here."

O-O-O-O

Ten minutes later.

Queen Buffy looked her human alternate over with some concern.

Queen Buffy – "Are you sure you're okay? You look shook up."

Human Buffy – "Don't worry about me. But you on the other hand. You've got some explaining to do."

Behind them, the ground level entrance to Atlantis closed up and Queen Buffy took this as an opportunity to be distracted by something.

Human Buffy – "No, really. You're in trouble, little lady. Not telling us about Oberon wasn't part of our agreement. What else haven't you told us?"

Queen Buffy – "We weren't sure how you'd react to her. She really is the only secret we were keeping from you."

Coming from the other side of the spacious cargo bay, an earsplitting roar startled most of the people in the room and attracted a lot of attention.

Human Buffy stared at what she first thought was a slayer riding upon a tyrannosaurus rex. Then she noticed the dinosaur's beady yellow eyes and immensely jagged teeth. The slayer mounted on its back kicked it gently in the ribs and swore at it, causing it to look back at her with some confusion.

Human Buffy - "Is that a vampire T-Rex?"

Queen Buffy, a little embarrassed – "I can't believe I forgot we had those."

Human Buffy - "There are just way too many things wrong with that picture."

The huge loading dock was already filled with tanks, cars and troops that had been loaded in from outside but new units were still coming in through the large mirror gate that had been riveted to one wall.

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else in Atlantis, another Buffy found herself quite busy.

Mal slid across the mess hall table as he screamed in not-so-manly way. He didn't fall off the other side because a slayer appeared before him in a flash and put him in a headlock faster than his eyes could move.

Catherine, holding Mal in a headlock – "I got this one."

The rest of the Serenity crew was similarly secured by slayers, except for River.

Future Buffy, holding Simon Tam - "Xander! What the hell?"

Future Xander, with River standing on his head – "She surprised me."

River had a shotgun but looked more scared than anything. It didn't make sense to her how the slayers could move like that. She snapped the shotgun to the side and fired, shooting the ceiling as Joke knocked the gun up and out of her hands. A fraction of a second later and Joke had somewhat gently pressed her hand around River's throat.

River punched Joke in the face but to no noticeable effect. A second later and River found herself pulled off Xander and dragged to the ground, ready to be hogtied.

Xander picked himself up now that the entirety of the Serenity crew had been pacified.

Xander – "How the heck did she do that? Is she a slayer?"

Joke sniffed River's neck and shook her head.

Joke – "I don't think so."

Xander – "Ugh, that's so embarrassing."

Zoe, with Heidi holding her from behind – "What's this about?"

Fred, sitting on Jayne – "I think we might be wrong about this."

Jayne – "Yeah, you've got the wrong guys. We didn't do anything, honest."

Heidi, about Zoe – "This lady doesn't smell supernatural at all."

Catherine, playing with Mal's hair – "Neither does this guy. But he's a dreamboat, aint he?"

Fox, holding Inara – "I think my one's cute."

Buddy, holding Kaylee – "Nuh-uh. When it comes to cute, mine is definitely the cutest. Yours is far too distinguished to be cute."

Joke, holding River – "Shut up! Is this a kindergarten? Why do we keep arguing about stupid things? Obviously, mine is the cutest."

Heidi, holding Zoe – "It's a coin toss between Joke's and Buddy's. It could go either way depending on who you ask. But when it comes to being just plain awesome, mine is a serious contender. Who wouldn't want a piece of this?"

Simon Tam, struggling against Buffy – "What is wrong with you people?!"

An SGC soldier – "Yeah? Did you have to do this here? Can't we eat in peace?"

Buffy, explaining to the soldier – "In our world, some of these people are evil."

Xander – "That's right! That guy kills little girls and he's the reason I'm wearing an eyepatch."

Mal – "What?!"

Fred – "And she's an evil goddess who eats people and tried to take over the world with her mind control powers. And the guy I'm sitting on, he was a super powered evil lawyer."

Jayne – "You need to cut back on whatever drugs you're on."

Kaylee, held by Buddy – "Jayne? A lawyer? That's as crazy as Mal killing children. They wouldn't do that."

Zoe, not sure if she should be insulted – "What did you say about me again?"

Fred, displeased with herself – "How about we just let them go and talk about this?"

River – "I'm okay with that."

Xander, holding his head – "And I think I need an icepack."

Fox, smirking – "Xander, you're really giving slayers a bad name."

Xander – "Hey, at least she was cute. I'd hate to get taken down by an ugly girl."

Buffy, now smirking too – "Does Faith count? Seriously though, maybe that slayer spell is running out of juice."

Xander, as the serenity crew were let loose – "I don't think it worked for me properly. I might not be slayer shaped enough. She can really pack a punch though."

Joke, with a shrug – "She can? I didn't notice."

Xander – "Not everyone has lost all sensation in their face, Joke."

Joke – "Poor excuse. If I could, I'd be smirking at you right now. It'd be all sexy and stuff."

O-O-O-O

Somewhere else on Atlantis, HumanWillow and DemonDawn were trying to figure out the teleporters.

Willow – "It's simple, Dawn. You just push where you want to go."

Dawn pushed the map on the wall of the teleporter and nothing happened.

Dawn – "See, it's not working for me. It's totally ignoring me."

Willow frowned and pushed the center of the map and the doors opened up, showing them a new scene.

Willow – "That's weird."

Dawn – "Not really. The same thing happens for vampires."

Dawn and Willow walked out into the gate room of Atlantis. Almost everyone was quietly and efficiently working away at whatever needed doing. Some people were chatting.

Dawn, with a bright smile – "And there's our girl. TARA!"

Tara turned in their direction to find Dawn running in her direction.

Tara, capturing Dawn in a hug – "I thought you didn't like spaceships."

Dawn – "Yeah, well, you know. Gotta face your fears some time. Uhh."

Dawn broke off the hug and gave Tara a disturbed look.

Willow, a little awkwardly – "Hi Tara."

Tara – "Hi."

Dawn, a little concerned – "Tara. What happened?"

Tara – "I, um, sort of had Harmony turn me."

Willow, not hearing that properly – "Huh?"

Dawn, to Willow – "She's a vampire!"

Willow, furious – "WHAT!? Harmony did this to you? I'm gonna kill her! Where is she?"

Tara, pleading – "Willow, you can't hurt her. I sort of went a bit crazy and, uh, she's already beating herself up enough about this."

Willow – "She turned you! Wait, are you evil?"

Dawn, to Willow – "She's got a soul. I can tell. No vampire would feel this guilty about having sex with her half sister."

Willow, trying to whisper but hissingly loud – "Dawn, can you not say that so everyone can hear it?"

Dawn – "Sure. Sorry. But yes, I'm quite sure she's got a soul. I'm still feeling the same sort of noble suffering goodness that drips off Tara all the time. It's still her."

Willow, frowning – "I'm still going to kill Harmony. How could she do this?"

Dawn – "I think a better question is, if Tara's a vampire then why is she feeling guilty for destroying Sunnydale?"

Willow, blinking at Tara – "That was you? Wow. I wish I could've seen it. That sounds cathartic."

Dawn – "You're lucky you didn't see it. I actually fell in when it collapsed. That wasn't any fun at all."

Tara – "Sorry about that .I wasn't expecting that to happen."

Dawn – "So it was you who did it. But how? You don't have the scythe anymore and you're a vampire so you definitely can't do the magic required."

Tara, smirking a little – "It turns out, that's not entirely true."

Tara held her hands up in front of her and lightning crackled between her fingers and barked when it jumped between her hands.

Dawn jumped back and looked terrified.

Dawn – "How the hell did you do that?!"

Tara – "I don't know. I just can. Harmony can too. We think it has something to do with how she turned me."

Dawn – "Harmony? Oh … crap…."

Willow – "What is it? I don't understand how this is possible."

Dawn – "It shouldn't be. But it is. Okay, firstly, Tara. Don't do that around me. I can feel it from here. Whatever wavelength that lightning of yours is on, it's the same wavelength as the scythe. If you hit me with it, if it doesn't instantly kill me, it'll irrevocably damage my emulation matrix and probably wind up killing me in a slow painful death sort of way."

Dawn took in a deep breath and stood back a little bit more.

Dawn – "Secondly, I know what's going on. It shouldn't be going on but it obviously is. You're a dreamer."

Tara, not having a clue – "I'm a dreamer?"

Dawn – "Yes. That's what we called them. Look, this shouldn't be possible. From what I heard, reality itself was altered so the dreamers could no longer exist."

Willow – "What's a dreamer?"

Dawn – "You know those charmed ones? You know how each of them had a magic power? They were witches, sure, but they also had a personal power. Like that Paige girl could teleport. Well, those powers are bestowed upon them by some upper level angel. The angels spend a lot of time and effort to make sure they give the right powers to the right people."

Willow - "Okay. Following so far. You're saying Tara's like a charmed one now? And that lightning is her power."

Dawn – "If only it was that simple. Yes, her lightning works the same way as the charmed one's personal powers. However, that's not what a dreamer is about. Those upper level angels who dish out the powers, that's what Tara can do now."

Tara – "What?"

Dawn – "Tara, you can make powers. You can give powers out like free candy. However, it's very very very very very important that you don't."

Willow – "Why not? I'd like a power."

Dawn – "It's important that she doesn't for the same reason the upper level angels don't give them away liberally."

Tara – "Because it would disrupt the balance between good and evil?"

Dawn gave Tara a weird look.

Dawn – "What? Are you crazy? No. That's not it at all. It's because some people aren't designed to wield powers. As a witch, you've flexed your magic muscles a little bit. So your single power might not be too much of a labor. However, if you gave a similar power to any normal non-magic-using Joe, it'll probably turn them insane."

Tara gasped – "Harmony!"

Dawn – "Exactly. Has she seemed a lot more paranoid recently? That's usually the first sign."

Tara thought about this – "Not especially. She was scared about people finding out about me and her but now she seems fine."

Dawn – "Huh. Okay. Well, keep an eye on her. And don't make any more powers. Especially for yourself. You've already got one. That's enough for now."

Tara – "I don't even know how I made this one!"

Dawn, scratching her head – "I honestly don't know how the Dreamers did their thing."

Willow – "Maybe it involved dreaming."

Dawn – "I doubt it. It's probably intuitive. A lot of the ancient champions had very intuitive powers."

Willow – "Oh, she's a champion? Yay, Tara. Champion status."

Tara couldn't help but grin at Willow being silly.

Dawn – "Actually, the dreamers were considered more a cosmic mistake than anything. But champion can fit, I guess."

O-O-O-O

Back at the cargo room.

Sunday tackled another slayer to the ground, kissed them and tore their jacket a little with passion.

Queen Buffy was pleased by the display but it wasn't the place for this sort of thing.

Queen Buffy, singing for some attention – "Sundaaaay."

Sunday ignored her entirely, obviously too busy ravaging someone.

Queen Buffy frowned and then growled. This caught their attention and both girls raced to pick themselves off the ground.

Queen Buffy, with her human alternate giving her an odd look – "That's better."

Sunday, explaining herself – "I thought she died."

Queen Buffy – "I get it. Luckily she didn't. Three other slayer from your team used their take-me-home potions when the candyvamps went on a rampage. Two of them did it because they were blown out into deep space."

Human Buffy - "I don't even want to know how hard it is to drink something in a vacuum."

The frazzled slayer that Sunday had accosted – "It's a lot harder than you'd think."

Queen Buffy – "I'm disbanding your tactical team since you've lost so many and have so many wounded. We'll take you back home where you'll be temporarily reassigned until we've got enough numbers for a proper team again."

Sunday, disappointed – "But we've settled in here already."

Queen Buffy – "I'm sure you have. But I'm bringing in a new tac team. My left hand."

Human Buffy – "Your left hand?"

Queen Buffy – "The best vamps I've got."

Human Buffy – "So what's your right hand?"

Queen Buffy, smirking – "The best sucks I've got. I'd prefer to use my succubae in here but frankly, our feeding habits might cause problems."

Sunday, almost sounding like a threat – "Shiva's not going to like this."

Queen Buffy – "Shiva's not in charge. I'll give you the honor of telling your teammates. Also, can you find those two ex-candy eating vampires please? We'll need to bring them back home for tests."

Human Buffy, not liking the sound of that – "Hold on, those vampires are ours."

Queen Buffy – "It's a necessary precaution, my succulent alter ego. You'd be surprised at the nasty surprises some of our vampire cousins come packaged with. Or maybe not, considering that you're a slayer. And need I remind you that these two didn't exactly become slayers in any normal way. They were activated with chaos magic."

Human Buffy – "Fine. But I better get them back in the same condition."

O-O-O-O

Conference room.

Atlantis was now hovering high over the earth and floating between the satellites as they ran a series of scans on the planet below.

Shepard, squinting through a window – "Efficient little bastards. How did they light the east coast on fire like that?"

McKay – "I have no idea. Nukes maybe. We're getting the results and… crap."

Shepard – "How bad is it?"

McKay, squinting at his laptop - "From this side of the planet, I'd estimate the population to be around twenty eight percent of original expectations."

Shepard – "Did you just say twenty eight percent?"

McKay – "That's a guess. We'll need to do a full orbit to scan the whole globe."

Shepard – "But they only started attacking four months ago. According to the report from that alternate future, they shouldn't have done this much damage."

McKay – "They're obviously learning. Did you hear about the zombies?"

A soldier entered the room with a transparent overlay, which he handed to McKay.

The soldier – "Here's the results from the witches."

McKay laid the overlay over his laptop screen and they matched almost perfectly.

McKay – "Oh yeah. Zombies are definitely to blame here."

Shepard, looking at the overlay – "What is that?"

McKay – "Some sort of magical scan. Don't ask me how it works. It's supposed to show supernatural entities. I'm guessing these big blobs of color are zombies. Either that or there's something else down there in huge numbers that's not picked up with our bio scanners."

O-O-O-O

Over the next hour, Atlantis swung around to the other side of the earth, scanning and dropping mirror gates to the surface at important strategic positions.

The only resistance they found were the zombie hordes who would flee at the sight of tanks and spaceships. They were cut down with ease by slayers and machinegun alike.

Since it seemed that the face eaters had abandoned this world, the situation turned from a proper war to mopping up a substandard enemy whose only advantage was large numbers.

Survivors seemed to rise out of the ground itself to help the war effort with whatever they could get their hands on.

Despite the incredible death toll this world had suffered, the interdimensional alliance was stronger than ever and now they were taking back worlds that had been lost to the eaters.

O-O-O-O

An Atlantis cargo bay.

Buffy was waiting for a very important message in a cargo bay that seemed to have turned into some sort of unofficial war room for the entire war effort.

Twist and Fred were talking rather animatedly about the various ways to deal with the zombie problem and Tara becoming a dreamer while Betsy seemed to be repulsed by Fred for some reason. Twist had explained it to Buffy by saying that Gods and Elder Gods are natural enemies. Betsy must've been picking up on that at some level and it was irking her to no end.

Others were there too, although Buffy's succubus alternates were nowhere to be seen. At least one of them wanted some alone time after the loss of her Xander. Buffy could understand that.

The cargo bay door opened and a sleek, black tadpole like ship slipped in and landed with a small clunk.

The cockpit opened up to reveal Malcolm Reynolds in a rather spiffy Alliance spacesuit.

Buffy, to Mal - "How was your dimension? Did you really kill Mister Shadow?"

Mal took his spacesuit helmet off and shook his head.

Mal – "If we did, it didn't do us a lick of good. My dimension's still riddled with those eaters of yours."

Buffy – "Well, crap. It looks like we'll have to help out your universe too."

Mal – "I'd greatly appreciate it. Now, if you'd excuse me, I'm going to get bathroom floor drunk."

O-O-O-O

Back at the Sunnydale crater.

Doctors and healers of various descriptions were moving between stretchers upon stretchers of wounded while more and more people were being dug out from the huge crater. Both soldiers and slayers stayed behind to help the recovery effort.

The female version of Oz sat on a stretcher and stared out at the huge crater in front of her. It kept her mind off those dying around her. The dull pain of her sprained arm and bruised chin helped keep her mind off that too.

Buddy, behind her – "Oz?"

Oz turned to face him and flinched a little when she saw that he had recently been bleeding heavily from his scalp. But he didn't seem to be in need of a doctor, like her.

Buddy held out a jade and gold necklace to Oz. She took it with her good hand without realizing the significance of it.

Buddy – "That valkyrie, I found her. She… we couldn't move her. She was too far gone. There was nothing anyone could've done. But she told me to give that to you. You're supposed to wear it."

Oz looked at the necklace in her hand rather blankly then slowly slid it on over her neck.

She closed her eyes as some sort of power rushed through her and made her skin tingle. She opened her eyes quickly enough to see her torn and disheveled clothes turn into finely tailored and somewhat tasteless tight black shiny leather clothes.

Oz, realizing what happened – "Her power, it was in this necklace."

Buddy, surprised at the metamorphosis too – "I know this might be an inappropriate time to mention this but god damn, you look good in that leather."

Oz could feel her werewolf side disappear and felt something else replace it. That something else was infinitely more refined but still felt like slapping Buddy for looking at her like that.

Buddy – "I should get back to help digging."

And so Buddy left her alone to her thoughts and whatever her new powers were.

Oz looked down at the necklace that found itself snuggling between her squished together breasts and felt a streak of sadness run through her.

Oz - "I didn't even know that valkyrie's name."

O-O-O-O

End of episode.

Continued in next chapter.


	67. 20a The deathmobile

Episode 20, chapter A : The deathmobile

O-O-O-O

Trueblood verse.

In front of a row of cameras.

Buffy clenched her hands but kept smiling for the camera.

Someone behind a camera – "And that's it. Ad break."

Buffy let out a sigh of relief, glad that was over.

Buffy, turning to the newsman behind a desk – "So how did you think I did for my first time on air?"

The newsman, surprised – "That was first time on air? Could've fooled me."

Buffy – "So you think I did good?"

The newsman, with a genuine smile – "You knocked it out of the park. And might I say, good luck with this war of yours. I hope my world can help out."

Buffy, grinning back – "Thanks."

Buffy stood up with slightly shaky legs and walked over to where Willow was waiting for her.

Willow, gushing with admiration – "Wow, you did so good."

Buffy, laughing – "Really? Because my heart is beating out of my chest. Thanks for being here for me."

Willow – "It's not a problem. So what now? Back to Atlantis?"

Buffy, sounding a little guilty – "Actually, there's something else I'd like to ask of you. I, umm, I sort of need a chaperone."

Willow raised an eyebrow at the strange request.

O-O-O-O

VampVerse, Queen Buffy's office and occasional den of iniquity.

Queen Buffy and Vamp Willow, were sitting on their plush couch and reading through material taken from the True Blood verse when two of their humans alternates entered the room.

Vamp Willow, with obvious sexual undertones in her voice – "Tease. You've been keeping us waiting."

Human Buffy, sweating a little – "Uh, yeah. I just came from that world where everyone knows about the supernatural. I got interviewed on TV about being a slayer. They're actually calling this interdimensional situation their first contact. Like, first contact with alien life."

Queen Buffy – "What a happy coincidence. We were being filmed in our dimension too. It turned out Willow's a horrible actress."

Vamp Willow, wincing – "It's true. I clam up in front of a camera."

Queen Buffy – "But she is very photogenic. She has that going for her. And I like to think she performed well."

Vamp Willow – "You seemed to like it."

Queen Buffy – "That I did."

Human Willow – "Uh, what are you talking about?"

Queen Buffy, as if whispering to Vamp Willow – "We should tell them. We are supposed to make an effort to be more transparent in our dealings, after all."

Vamp Willow, proudly – "We're making a porno. You can't see it yet because it hasn't gone through post production yet but it's going to be incredible. The girls down here are just so talented it's crazy. Like there's this scene where – actually, I should probably show you it anyway. Otherwise, I doubt you'd believe me."

Human Willow, eye's wide – "You're making a porno? And you starred in it?"

Vamp Willow – "Well, at first, I didn't want to. But Buffy persuaded me."

Vamp Willow cooed a little as she remembered the persuasive argument they had and gave Queen Buffy a very short but fun filled kissed that made her smile anew.

Queen Buffy – "I can't take all the credit for that. The film crew helped too. So, other me, you don't normally bring your Willow with you into my office. Is it a special occasion? Should I bring out the champagne?"

Human Buffy – "No, I just thought I'd bring her along for protection… against you two."

Queen Buffy, feigning ignorance – "Against us but we'd never hurt you. Oh, you think she'd protect you against our advances?"

Vamp Willow, smirking as she stood up off the couch – "I see a flaw in your logic."

Queen Buffy, watching her girlfriend circle around the humans – "Willow really isn't the right choice for that. If anything, she wants smoochies from you more than us."

Human Buffy, watching Vamp Willow too – "What? No, she doesn't. She doesn't think about me like that. We're just friends. Right, Will?"

Human Willow, not convincingly – "Yeah, absolutely. Just friends. I don't want smoochies from you at all."

Queen Buffy – "I think she protests too much."

HumanWillow backed away from her vampire alternate as they got closer. What human Willow didn't realize was that she was being backed up towards Queen Buffy. Human Willow yelped a little as the Queen pulled her down into her lap on the couch.

Queen Buffy, stroking Human Willow's hair but talking to Human Buffy – "All you've accomplished if giving us a new toy to play with."

Human Willow seemed more scared than anything as Queen Buffy stopped her preening and leaned back on the couch.

Queen Buffy, to Human Willow – "If you're anything like my Willow, you like to be the one in control. So I'll tell you what. You can do whatever you want to me and I won't lift a finger in defense."

Human Willow, dumbfounded – "uhhhh."

Vamp Willow, leaning her head on Human Buffy's shoulder – "She won't do anything. I can tell she really wants to but she just won't. She's a wimp."

Human Willow – "Hey! Now I want to just to prove you wrong. But I won't. Because that would be, you know, wrong. This whole situation is wrong. Even if I did anything to this Buffy, I wouldn't be able to face mine ever again."

Queen Buffy – "I don't think she'd mind. Aint that right, other me?"

Vamp Willow, sliding up against human Buffy – "You really should give her permission. She's been dying to know what your mouth feels like since she first set eyes on you."

HumanBuffy – "Wait, what? Really? No, that can't be… Willow?"

Human Willow looked like she might die of embarrassment while Vamp Willow chuckled meanly.

Queen Buffy, to her twin – "I hope you know that my Willow was still human when we first starting making love. To be entirely honest, I do miss her warmth. But she spanks me so much better now. It's a fair trade."

Vamp Willow, holding her hands over Human Buffy's eyes – "If it helps, I'll keep her eyes closed."

Human Buffy, laughing a little – "This is silly. She's not –"

Human Buffy stopped arguing when she heard her Willow moan loudly. She couldn't see anything but she could hear the smacking of lips from here.

She gasped a little at that then gasped a little more as the vampire behind her planted her mouth on her neck. She tried squirmed away but Vamp Willow was ready for this.

The vampire grabbed her by both sides of her waist and then threw her onto the desk which luckily was clear of anything sharp. Then Vamp Willow pounced on top and pinned human Buffy's hands above her head.

Vamp Willow turned her head slowly to her human alternate, leading human Buffy to look too. On the couch, human Willow was busy making out with such gusto that human Buffy had to do a double take. She was brought back to her current predicament when vamp Willow growled and ground herself against her.

Buffy's eyes rolled upwards as lust flowed through her and Vamp Willow claimed her mouth. Emotions raged through her and the emotions started strangling her.

Human Buffy, shaking her head free – "Please stop."

Vamp Willow, loosening Human Buffy's belt – "You want this."

Human Buffy, with tears in her eyes – "Stop!"

Vamp Willow stopped and blinked a little then quickly got off.

Vamp Willow, horrified at her actions – "Oh god, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm used to dealing with my Buffy and… I'm sorry."

Human Buffy, catching her breath – "It's okay. I just suddenly don't feel too good. Ugh, my head is killing me."

Human Willow, looking fearful – "Have we stopped making out?"

Human Buffy, sounding tired – "Maybe next time I should bring Faith instead."

Vamp Willow, smirking – "And you think that'd work out better for you?"

Human Buffy, frowning – "Why is it I always get a headache around you two?"

Vamp Willow looked to Queen Buffy, who didn't seem to have any answers.

Queen Buffy – "No idea."

Human Willow – "Can I still, umm…"

Human Buffy, sighing – "Okay. Whatever. But only after we finish with business."

Human Buffy slowly got off the table and blinked hard a few times, trying to fight off the sudden migraine that was trying to split her head in half.

Human Buffy, rubbing her temples – "Man, that is weird. Maybe I should go see a doctor."

Vamp Willow, with clear concern – "Maybe you should. You've been getting those headaches a lot, recently."

Human Buffy – "So, why am I here anyway? What did you want to show me?"

This caused Vamp Willow to grin widely.

Vamp Willow, laughing – "Oh, that's right. It's the greatest thing ever. As far as I'm concerned, it's the closest you can get to heaven on earth."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later.

Vamp Willow – "See, what did I tell you? Cool bananas, right?"

Human Willow, laughing a little crazily – "This is so cool bananas."

Human Buffy, smirking weakly – "Someone should hose those two down."

The room they were in was full of Buffys and Amys. There were around ten of each. They all looked to have different ages, different haircuts and even different hair colors. All of them were idly doing various things. Many were reading.

Human Buffy – "If someone say something about getting a full set, I'm going to have to hurt them."

Queen Buffy – "It's nothing to do with sexual fantasies. It's for pragmatic reasons only. The only people we've found so far who can represent for the eaters have been Amy and me. So, to stop that ever occurring, we've stuck them all in one tightly secure place. When we find more possible representatives, we'll do the same with them too."

Human Willow – "Are they slayers too?"

Vamp Willow – "Unfortunately, no. But some of them are fun."

Queen Buffy – "We've been analyzing the hell out of them, trying to figure out what makes us so special and so far, we haven't found anything. All of our twins are potential slayers but none of the Amy's are. And magically speaking, nothing stands out."

Human Buffy – "Maybe we should keep them in my dimension."

Queen Buffy – "Umm, no. I'm putting my foot down on that too. We've spent decades working on the security for this place. Not just physical security like you'd get in your world but magical too. They're safer here. Oh, is this a trust thing? Well, tough. What are you going to say when the people in your world ask you why you're keeping a pile of your alternates under lock and key? You'll tell them that you're one of the few people who can help the eaters in their quest to vanquish all human life from the cosmos? They might feel it safer if they just killed them and you and me. I don't know about you but I'm not big on dying."

Human Buffy, not liking it – "Fine. You win."

One of the Alternates walked up and gave Vamp Willow a gentle hug.

Alternate Buffy – "Hey Red. Me and the girls are really getting bored down here. Do you think you could get some more DVDs or something? There's only so much Gin Rummy a girl can play before she loses her mind. So, who's the new girl?"

Alternate Buffy to Human Buffy – "Hi, I'm Krysta. I know this all must be very scary for you but don't worry. It's not as bad as it seems. You'll settle right in with the rest of us."

Human Buffy – "Hi, I'm Buffy and I'm not settling in with the rest of you."

Human Buffy to Queen Buffy – "Do they know about slayers?"

Queen Buffy, to Krysta – "Krysta, this one's a slayer, like me. Not a succubus, just a slayer."

Krysta, a little uncomfortable with this information – "Oh, really? So you fight evil monsters too? That's, uh, great."

Human Willow, studying Krysta – "I always wondered what you'd be like if you wasn't a slayer."

Queen Buffy, with a pleased grin – "Krysta here worked in porn. She's helping us with the art direction of our current filming project. Kathryn over there, the one with dark hair, we teleported her out of jail. She was in for snorting coke. The other dark haired one next to her likes to cut herself."

Krysta, not so impressed with Queen Buffy – "She's making it sound worse than it is. We've got nurses, cooks, a newspaper editor and, umm, a few cheerleaders."

Human Buffy – "Cheerleaders. Hmm, yup, that sounds like me."

Queen Buffy – "Weirdly, Faith has a lot of cheerleader alternates too."

The human versions of Willow and Buffy both looked at Queen Buffy weirdly.

VampWillow – "It's true. I didn't believe it either. But really, some of her alternates are jumping around with pom poms and making human pyramids and everything. It's more than a little disturbing. I can show you the footage if you want."

Human Willow – "You've got footage of that?"

Vamp Willow, grinning – "Yup. I was thinking about using it for blackmail material, should the need arise."

Human Willow – "I feel a little guilty that I was thinking the exact same thing."

Human Buffy – "I'd actually be interested in seeing that. Hey, so what's with the different names?"

Queen Buffy – "It seems not all alternates have lived the same lives that we do. They don't even have the same families."

Human Buffy – "How does that work?"

Krysta – "No idea. But I like Buffy's mom more than I like my own."

Human Buffy – "So you've found our alternates and Amy's. You've also been checking out Faith's?"

Vamp Willow – "We're checking out anyone of possible interest. That includes recent slayers and all the Scoobies. We're also checking out anyone who might be a future big bad. That girl from your world, Betsy, she's really helped out with this."

Human Willow – "Betsy? Twist's girlfriend?"

Human Buffy, explaining to Willow – "She can teleport between dimensions. But I didn't know she was helping out here."

Queen Buffy – "There was a spaceship called Serenity on Atlantis. Apparently, most of the crew are big bads in our world. We've already taken out a few such alternates because, yes, they were definitely evil. One of them liked to kill little girls. Also, one of them was a robot."

Vamp Willow – "But we didn't kill her."

Human Willow – "Huh?"

Vamp Willow – "That confused us too. We think the spell malfunctioned. It does look like her though. Even weirder, it was possessed by an evil demon. But the demon was trapped in place with some sort of evolving firewall that we don't really understand. Also, it's from the future. Still doesn't know anything about the eaters, only about some silly war against evil robots."

Human Willow – "Weird."

Queen Buffy started walking out and the other Scoobies followed.

Queen Buffy, once out of earshot from her Alternates – "Since you've been gone, a few things have happened. We've got good news and bad news. what do you want first?"

Human Buffy – "Is the bad news that there's no good news?"

Queen Buffy – "No, the bad news is that war has taken a bad turn."

Human Buffy – "How so? We just took back a world, right?"

Queen Buffy – "While Buddy's world is relatively stable thanks to all our help, it's still got plenty of zombies on it and it's effectively been taken out of the fight. But it's still a success, I guess. The bad news is that we've got two problems. One, the slayer spell that Lambronazi sacrificed herself for, it's running out of juice. As we speak, vampires in Buddy's world are losing their slayer powers. Most have already lost them. The only silver lining is that they're losing their slayer sized thirst for blood and they've still got their souls…. Right, Willow?"

Willow, smirking – "Hmm? What was that? I was too busy thinking of naughty things to do to you later."

Queen Buffy, smirking slightly – "Secondly, we've been doing some scouting of that universe where those Alliance guys come from. The eaters are evolving."

Human Buffy – "How?"

Queen Buffy – "Will? You've got the files, right?"

Vamp Willow pulled out a surprisingly thin rod like device. She pushed a button on it and a holographic display appeared in front of them.

Human Willow, looking at the device – "What's that?"

Vamp Willow, lying – "Something I brought on ebay."

Vamp Willow fiddled with the rod a little until a disturbing looking creature appeared on the screen. It had long cloak-like wings folded around it making its silhouette strangely human like from a distance.

Vamp Willow fiddled a bit more and another version of the creature appeared except this one had been infected by the eaters. Its face was a large pincer covered hole and it's mostly transparent wings had been turned into large ceramic like shields.

Human Buffy – "Whoa, what is that?"

Queen Buffy – "They're demon cockroaches. They're not too bright but they're lethally dangerous to humans. A while back they all disappeared from our world. It seems they've got a new ally, the face eaters."

Vamp Willow – "Huh? But wouldn't they not want to be turned into eaters?"

Queen Buffy – "The individual cockroaches are pretty mindless. They're controlled by a nameless god. We think the nameless god is growing an army of cockroaches for Mister Shadow to convert to eaters."

Human Buffy – "Do you know how fast they can breed?"

Queen Buffy – "Very fast."

Vamp Willow – "If you take food out of the equation, they can multiply their numbers by around forty fives times a year. That means they could outnumber the population of the earth within five or six years. And if they convert excess males into eaters then the food problem will be even less. As far as we can tell, eaters don't even need to eat."

Queen Buffy – "But numbers isn't the problem. The problem is Mister Shadow. The only thing we've found so far that's any threat at all to him is Atlantis. Even Oberon was powerless against him. My girls will still fight the eaters but they're not interested in facing him again, not without some way to kill him."

Human Buffy, nodding – "He is a problem."

Queen Buffy – "One of the theories going around is that he'll get weaker if we bring down the population of eaters. But that's not very helpful either."

Human Buffy – "So what's the good news?"

Queen Buffy – "The governments on my world have started playing nice with us. That means I can free up more slayers from defensive and investigative positions across the world and rely on military help more. Also, as part of the good news package, we've established contact with the resistance in the Alliance's universe. You know, the place where humans live in space but there are no aliens?"

Human Buffy – "Yes, I know the place you mean."

Queen Buffy – "Well, the resistance isn't doing too badly, considering. The eaters tend to use pretty simple wave tactics and they're nowhere near as good at using the Alliance ships as the humans are. Also, apparently they've found some technological way to stop the eaters teleporting. They're installing it on all their ships, meaning the eaters can' onto them. It means, at least in space, the eaters have to fight them on equal terms."

Human Buffy – "That's great. So any word on when we're going to invade that universe?"

Vamp Willow, frowning – "The human generals think we're not ready not yet."

Human Willow – "Don't they know that entire worlds are being destroyed in that dimension?"

Vamp Willow – "Oh, they know alright. That's partially why they don't think they're ready."

Queen Buffy – "They want to perfect this anti-teleporting technology and get at least three other dimensions to pitch in. There's also something else they want."

Human Buffy – "What?"

Queen Buffy – "It's probably better if I showed you. Hey, you could even join in on this mission if you want. Could be fun."

Human Buffy – "What sort of mission? It's not on an alien world, is it?"

Queen Buffy looked to her Willow who shrugged a little.

Vamp Willow – "Technically speaking, it's not an alien world."

O-O-O-O

Forty minutes later.

Both Buffys and the human Willow were inside an armored personnel carrier along with a few soldiers. All of them were wearing very thick arctic gear. But that didn't stop them from bunching up and shivering with cold.

A soldier that Queen Buffy was snuggling up against - "I'll have you know that I'm married."

Queen Buffy – "I need the bodyheat, you idiot. Not being a mammal sucks sometimes."

Willow, shivering – "Can't we put the heater up a little more?"

One of the soldiers shook his head – "Sorry, it's already at max."

Queen Buffy growled to herself and Human Buffy could understand the sentiment. She felt a tinge of compassion and swapped sides to hug some warmth into her alternate.

Queen Buffy – "Thanks."

Human Buffy – "You're welcome. So what are we doing here?"

One of the soldiers – "You didn't tell her?"

Queen Buffy – "Why don't you tell her? My mouth is too busy trying to fuse together."

The human Scoobies waited for an explanation from the soldiers who all remarkably identical in their furry hoods.

The furry hooded soldier who was in charge – "We're on earth but we're also in the future. By this time, climate change went apeshit and turned the globe into a freezer. Don't ask us how. Even our eggheads can't make sense of the numbers with this place. Even the alliance don't know and they come from here."

Willow – "How can they not know?"

Soldier in charge – "A big chunk of history was lost when they left earth. To cut back on weight restrictions of the pioneer's space shuttles, physical books were contraband. Everything was digitalized. But there was a computer virus that found its way onto every leaving ship, so they lost it all in one go. They could only go by what people said and everyone had a different story. There's more fiction than fact out there about this world."

Human Buffy, not that interested – "That's fascinating. So what are we doing here?"

Soldier in charge – "When the pioneers left earth behind, they thought they wouldn't have wars in the outer space, as if they had evolved beyond that. So they left most of the real big weapons behind."

Human Buffy – "So we're after weapons? How do we know someone else hasn't gotten to them first."

Soldier in charge – "Two reasons. Firstly, it's almost impossible to land on this planet without killing yourself and secondly, because the Alliance placed autonomous space defenses around the entire system to stop people even reaching earth."

Willow – "What? That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"

Soldier in charge, grinning – "Not when you consider some of the hardware they've got down here. Hey, Mackenzie, you've got the pictures."

MacKenzie pulled out a small binder from under his jacket, which he folded out to show them.

MacKenzie, pointing certain things out – "Advanced stealth scout drones with hard AI strike, assassination and support options. Optically camouflaged sentry gun with a pinpoint accurate laser weapon system. Programmable migrating mines with a sophisticated IFF system that can also network together with themselves and allied electronics to create a remotely monitored battlefield sensors system. But most importantly, we're looking for the mark four hunter killer air-land domination systems, fully autonomous flying drones that represent the pinnacle of human technology in this universe and are capable of nothing less than genocide on a global scale."

The soldier in charge - "That is, as long we keep refueling and rearming them. And they'll be mark fives when we're done upgrading them."

Queen Buffy – "But after my side have upgraded them too, don't remember that part. They'll need magical protection against demonic influences. We don't want the bad guys getting a hold of them."

Human Buffy – "So we're here for robots?"

Queen Buffy – "Really mean robots. Trust me, this will be worth me turning into a meat popsicle."

Human Buffy – "How do we know that no one's already stolen them?"

Soldier in charge – "They're locked within several heavily fortified underground bunkers around the world. The bunker we're checking is supposed to be this world's version of the Beale air force base. We should actually be there soon. It's close to the Sunnydale portal exit."

Technical minded soldier, putting away his binder – "Each of these bunkers has their own AI controlled defenses that can only be deactivated from the inside."

Queen Buffy – "Which is where I come in."

One of the drivers – "Hey! Cappy, we've got a problem!"

The soldier in charge – "What is it?"

Driver – "We're getting hailed by some automated defenses. It's playing a taped message, saying if we get any closer that it'll open fire."

Soldier in charge – "Then stop. How far are we to the base?"

Driver – "About a kilometer."

Soldier in charge, to Queen Buffy – "Is that close enough for you to do your thing?"

Queen Buffy – "Let's find out. Open the hatch."

The captain nodded and another soldier opened the hatch at the back of the vehicle. Queen Buffy walked out the back and looked around as they closed the hatch back up to conserve heat.

It was pretty obvious to her where to go. There was a very wide concrete structure in the distance that just screamed military to her. Above the structure, the clouds had parted and the sun shone down upon it like a divine guiding light.

It was the first time she had seen direct sunlight on this world.

Queen Buffy, with a sigh – "They had better not have used all the hot water back home or I'm going to be pissed."

O-O-O-O

Outterverse. Wolfram and Hart, special projects division.

Mister Shadow stood in front of Eve, Wolfram and Hart's former liaison to the pan dimensional beings known only as the senior partners. She's a former liaison because liaising became impossible with the dimensional quarantine.

Mister Shadow – "It seems I'm in the market for a liaison and I heard you were free. If you want to survive the coming darkness, you'll work for me."

Eve frowned slightly and looked to some of the lawyers in the room. They seemed more intrigued than scared.

Lilah Morgan, one of the hotter lawyers of Wolfram and Hart - "Since our connection with the senior partners has been severed, I'm sure we can accommodate you here at Wolfram and Hart. There are a few ground rules we should settle upon first."

Mister Shadow – "Such as?"

Lilah Morgan - "Such as, it's considered inappropriate, here at Wolfram and Hart, to kill people in this fashion."

Mister Shadow looked around the room, to various points where he had pulverized and torn apart several security guards. He had been so thorough that the exact number of guards he had messily disposed off was now in question.

Mister Shadow – "Too messy?"

Lilah Morgan, nodding – "It makes it hard to get out of the shag carpet."

Mister Shadow – "I think I can abide by that rule. Anything else I should know?"

Lilah Morgan – "That's mostly it."

Eve – "Despite my becoming your Liaison, is there anything Wolfram and Hart itself can do to help?"

Mister Shadow considered this for a second.

Mister Shadow – "Tell me, do you know of a vampire with a soul?"

Lilah Morgan – "Angel?"

Mister Shadow – "That's him. I hate that guy. Could you do something about him?"

Eve, grinning evilly – "We'll destroy him."

O-O-O-O

Angel's bedroom at Angel investigations.

Angel's eyes snapped open as he heard someone sneaking into his hotel.

He jumped out of bed and grabbed a broadsword he had left on a coffee table. Last night, he was in the process of sharpening it but got a bit bored and went to bed instead.

He snuck up the stairs to the hotel foyer and did his best to unlock the door quietly. He paused before opening the door and heard movement within the foyer. Whoever it was would soon be getting close and personal with the slightly dull sword in his hands.

He swung the door open and sped into the foyer, sword held aloft and ready for a skull splitting blow.

Seeing this, Cordelia screamed and fell over.

Angel, startled a bit too – "Oh! Sorry."

Cordelia – "Angel! You almost gave me a heart attack."

Angel – "Cordelia? What are you doing here?"

Cordelia, picking herself and some mail up – "I work here!"

Angel – "Well, yeah but… what time is it? You're in early."

Cordelia – "And you slept in again. And you haven't shaved yet either."

Angel, sheepishly - "I, umm…"

Cordelia – "Yeah, I get it. You've been in a rut recently and you need a good battle to the death to bring you out of it."

Angel, half mumbling – "I never said I was complicated."

Cordelia, looking at the mail – "I'm with you on the battle to the death. We need the money. All we've got is bills, bills, bills and more… oh. What's this? Oh wait, another bill."

There was a knock at the front door to the foyer and a lanky teenager in a suit let himself in.

Teenager in the suit – "Are you Angel, of Angel investigations?"

Angel, with a small smile – "That's me."

Cordelia, with a much brighter smile – "We help the harmless."

The teenager, giving Angel an envelope – "You have been served."

Cordelia frowned as the teenager turned around then quickly left before anyone got too violent.

Angel, clearly confused – "I've been served what?"

Once he had the envelope open and started reading the contents, he slowly understood.

Angel – "Oh. Wolfram and Hart is suing us."

Cordelia, finding this funny – "The forces of darkness are pressing charges?"

Angel, frowning – "This is serious. Wait, the court case is tonight? How am I supposed to organize a defense in that time? I don't even have a lawyer yet. This doesn't even tell me what they're suing me for."

O-O-O-O

Firefly verse, earth that was.

The armored personnel carrier drove down a ramp into the heavily fortified storage facility and stopped at the bottom where Queen Buffy was waiting.

Queen Buffy experimentally pushed buttons on a keypad until the entrance into the base closed and shut out the cold weather.

The back of the APC opened and the expeditionary team filed out, along with the human versions of Buffy and Willow.

Willow, looking around the well lit and spacious room that was stacked high with freight containers – "Wow, this place is big."

Queen Buffy, grinning - "It's even bigger that looks from the outside. It's a bit weird how someone left the lights on though. You'd think they would've burnt out by now."

One of the soldiers – "Must be automated."

Human Buffy, frowning – "So why is it warm in here?"

Same soldier - "I just told you. Automated systems. The air conditioning must have turned on too when it registered our presence."

Queen Buffy, frowning too – "Is the air conditioning instantaneous in the future? Because it was warm when I first walked in."

This caused almost everyone to think about that for a few seconds. If they hadn't stopped, they might not have heard the distant thud of feet hitting floor.

All of them turned towards the direction of the sound as it became louder and louder and were surprised when a wall exploded and a gigantic robot stumbled into the room. It must have been at least thirty five or so feet high.

Willow – "What is that thing?!"

One of the soldiers, scared to death - "It a fricken Godzilla!"

Human Buffy, with a much more determined look on her face - "No. It's truckosaurus."

The bizarre looking, somewhat dinosaur shaped robot roared and they heard rotary cannons rev up. Everyone dived to the side as the cannons screamed and spat out two lines of tracer filled rounds that almost tore the APC in half.

Soldier in charge – "Bug out! Everyone drink their potions."

The robot let loose a volley of rockets which everyone ran to the sides to avoid. The combined explosion was horrendous, pushing and tipping over packed freight containers.

Human Buffy couldn't do anything as five soldiers got pressed hard between freight containers that slid together. After the fact, she took several seconds to pry the containers apart to find the soldiers still in one piece but several of them were unconscious.

On the ground, most of their take-me-home potions had already spilled across the concrete floor.

Human Buffy, picking up one of their machine guns – "Damn it."

Something in the dino-bot clanked noisily and the speakers on the side of the robot crackled with distaste.

Dino-bot – "Damnit! Work! Piece of crap missile launchers. I just oiled them last week!"

Human Buffy hefted her heavy machine gun up in the direction of the robot and pulled the trigger. Bullets barked out and thudded against the hull of the giant robot but didn't seem to be doing much in the way of damage.

A soldier on the other side of the room had a similar idea and fired a rocket launcher at the robot. The rocket exploded on the robot's "jaw" and turned the head slightly but didn't seem to do much else.

Dino-bot, with a distorted and static filled voice - "So you brought some toys this time? You think that will help you? It won't! Why won't you learn to STAY OUT OF MY DIMENSION?"

Human Buffy rolled to the side as the robot let loose with another more high caliber bullets. The bullets trailed past on both sides of her and then stopped suddenly.

Dino-bot – "Wait. You're not one of them. You're human."

Human Buffy, blinking with surprise – "Uh, that's right. I'm human. Hey, big guy, we're not here to fight. So why don't we just -"

Dino-bot, interrupting her – "Buffy!? But this can't be. Oh my god, it is! BUFFY FRICKEN SUMMERS!?!? I AM GOING TO TEAR YOUR STINKING HEAD OFF!"

Human Buffy – "What!? What the hell did I do?"

Two huge lasers cannons slid out from the main body of the robot and started firing a continual stream of hot laser death. Murderous rage gargled through the speakers on the robot as it charged forwards. It's lasers firing willy-nilly, incapable of targeting properly with such turbulence.

Buffy ducked and weaved, trying her best not to get cut in half by the erratically moving laser beams. Then she jumped aside to narrowly avoid getting trampled by the giant robot and saw her undead alternate jump off some scaffolding onto the robots back.

The robot hit the wall face first but didn't seem particularly damaged. It righted itself with apparent ease then turned around to face her again. The lasers were glowing red hot and didn't look like they'd be much use anymore since they folded back into the main body.

Robot's pilot – "I really must thank you for all this opportunity you've given me. I never thought I'd have the chance to kill you, you hypocritical bitch."

Human Buffy – "Hey now, that's just not nice."

She let loose with her machine gun again but this time targeted the legs as she didn't want to poke painful holes through her alternate.

The rotary cannons whirred up again but stopped when Queen Buffy shoved a stake into some of its gears. The pilot voiced some confused concern at first but then screamed when Queen Buffy found out how to open the "cockpit."

She reached inside to grab the pilot but the pilot slammed the robot sideways into a wall. Queen Buffy got at least partially crushed between the robot and the wall and fell down in obvious pain.

The robot backpedaled so the pilot could take a look at what he just hit.

The pilot - "Two Buffys?! CONSPIRACY!"

Queen Buffy looked up at the pilot and felt a little ill at what she saw. It looked human except for lacking skin and having frostbite blackened flesh. It looked more pitiful than demonic. But since it was about to trample over her with ten or so tons of metal, she guessed maybe it was more demonic than pitiful after all.

Fortunately for Queen Buffy, her human alternate jumped off a pile of freight containers and landed inside the cockpit. There was a single loud bang of a sidearm and then Buffy yanked the pilot out of the cockpit, to fall quite a distance to the floor.

The pilot landed feet first but his legs broke like twigs with the impact. He cried out weakly with the pain and for a few moments forgot about his fight. But that didn't last long as he pulled out what looked like a remote detonator.

The pilot, holding the detonator up for all to see- "I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

SPLAT! went the pilots head when Buffy jumped on it from on top of the giant tyrannosaurus robot.

Human Buffy, lifting one of her boots – "Eewwww."

Queen Buffy, suitably impressed – "Not bad for a human."

Queen Buffy relaxed and fished her take-me-home potion out.

Queen Buffy – "Uh, you don't mind, do you? It's just I really want a hot bath."

Human Buffy made a show of considering this.

Human Buffy, picking up the remote detonator – "I think we can handle the rest without you. Hey what do you think this does?"

Queen Buffy – "Probably sets off the nukes in that robot. I saw the big nuclear symbols on them when I was on its back."

Human Buffy frowned as she looked up at the robotic monstrosity – "A nuclear equipped walking deathmobile?"

Queen Buffy – "Oh, and that guy who's brains your standing in. He's not dead yet."

Human Buffy – "Huh?"

Queen Buffy – "It's still got a heartbeat. I can hear it from here. That normally means it's still alive. We should probably dismember it, burn the remains then bury them with salt. That tends to get things done."

Human Buffy, considering this – "Do you think he'll heal? Cos I'm sort of curious as to why he hates my guts. Aren't you?"

Queen Buffy, with a sigh – "Not really. But if you let me take him home, I'm sure some of our interrogators can get to the bottom of it."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	68. 20b The battle of Boston

Episode 20, chapter B : The battle of Boston.

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, a court room.

Angel gulped as his court appointed lawyer spilled his coffee on the floor, whined wordlessly about it then kicked the empty Styrofoam cup across the courtroom floor.

Everyone in the court room ignored it. Angel could smell some sort of drug from here on his lawyer. He didn't know if the lawyer was an addict or whether he was dosed by someone else but he still seemed more suited to deal with lawyering that Angel himself.

Court appointed lawyer, yelling at the ceiling – "What are we even doing here?"

Angel – "Your honor, could I please have a different lawyer?"

Judge – "No! And we're here for a very serious case of vigilantism."

Angel – "We are?"

Judge – "Don't act like you don't know why we're here."

Angel frowned, as he really didn't know this beforehand.

Lilah Morgan, to Angel – "Last month, you accosted several dock workers, a foreign diplomat and trespassed on private property."

Angel, scratching the back of his neck – "I did?"

Lilah Morgan – "We have video footage of the event."

Angel's lawyer – "Oh yeah, I've got some stills of that. Here big guy, take a look."

The court appointed lawyer tipped out the contents of a manila folder and spread them around the table a little, until he found what he wanted.

Angel's lawyer – "See, there you are, caught red handed. Wouldn't want to be you right now."

Angel - "Wait, this is about that?! There were kidnapped girls! They were stuck in freight containers about to be shipped out to sea."

Judge – "That's the jurisdiction of the police, not private citizens."

Angel's lawyer – "Actually, I think it might have been the coast guard's jurisdiction by that stage."

Judge – "Do you want to be held in contempt?"

Angel's lawyer, shaking his head thoroughly – "N-no."

Angel – "This is crazy. The police didn't have a problem with what I did."

Lilah – "I would have it on record that the defendant is unrepentant of his crimes."

Behind Angel, the rest of Angel investigations really didn't like where this court case was going. There was more than a few things wrong with it.

Lilah, enjoying this more than a little – "And while we're here, I would like to bring to light the unauthorized use of medieval weaponry. He used a sword, your honor. What sort of insanity is that?"

Angel's lawyer, weakly - "Maybe the sword was just lying around?"

Angel covered his face with his hands as the twin swinging doors to the court room swung open and two more lawyers walked in like they owned the place.

Angel had no idea who they were but he could tell Lilah did by the way she was staring. Angel's lawyer swore softly and slid off his chair with surprise.

The shorter, heavier set lawyer – "Ahh good, we're not too late. Hello everyone, I'm Denny Crane."

Alan Shore, just as cheerful – "Alan Shore."

Denny Crane, to Angel – "Hello, whoever you are, we'd like to take your case."

Angel turned to his court appointed lawyer who seemed even more surprised than him.

Court appointed lawyer, to Angel – "That would be a good idea."

Denny Crane – "Of course is it. I'm Denny Crane. We can't lose."

Lilah, mortified – "Wait! What do you mean you're taking his case? Do you even know what it's about? And aren't you supposed to be in the middle of a case in Boston?"

Denny Crane, reading the other lawyer's notes – "Hardly matters. Denny Crane. Hey, what the habius corpus is this case about?"

Angel – "Vigilantism."

Denny Crane's eyes widened with surprise – "Oh really? That's one of my favorites. I do it all the time. Now I really want to defend you."

Angel looked down at his court appointed lawyer and shrugged, realizing that things can't get worse.

Angel – "Okay, fine. You can defend me."

Denny Crane – "Great. Your honor, I'm Denny Crane, I'm defending this man. Do we really need to go any further? It's already won."

The Judge - "How dare you. I won't stand for your grand standing in my court room."

Alan Shore, taking a closer look at the evidence - "Then you can sit for it. This whole case is a sham."

The Judge – "Excuse me?"

Alan Shore - "I think it's obvious why the government isn't pursuing this line of inquiry. Actually, I'm wondering how such a case was pushed through legal channels so fast. I'm sure if we investigated the bank accounts of everyone involved, there'll be some discrepancies."

The Judge looked like he wanted to say something but didn't.

Alan Shore – "He saved girls stuck in crates? If we go to a full trial, the jury is going to love that part."

Denny Crane, referring to Cordelia – "And just look at this girl. Look at her. She's amazing."

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at Cordelia, most of them wondering what the point to that was.

Denny Crane – "Oh, I'm not talking about the case. I'm just saying. She's magnificent."

Cordelia – "Uh, thanks?"

Alan Shore – "Quite frankly, there are so many ways we can tackle this. I think we might do it bold faced and patriotically, with Angel, a veritable man's man who was so outraged by this situation that he threw himmself into harms way, damn the consequences."

Denny Crane – "Ooh, that's good. We could probably get a movie deal too. We are in tinsel town."

The Judge, slamming his mallet down – "Very well, court adjourned."

Alan Shore, a little snidely - "Your honor, not so fast. My client would like a cash settlement for the emotional grievances caused by this travesty of justice."

Angel – "I would?"

Denny Crane - "Of course you would. How would ten million dollars sound?"

Angel, dumbfounded – "Uhhh."

Lilah – "What!?"

Denny - "I knew you'd like it. Now five percent of that is ours, court fees and so on. All very technical."

Lilah - "Ten million dollars? Are you crazy?"

Alan Shore, with some contempt thrown in Lilah's direction - "I'm quite sure your firm can afford it."

Lilah – "But –"

The Judge, slamming his mallet down again – "Very well. Wolfram and Hart shall pay ten millions dollars. Now I need a drink."

Denny crane, whispering to Lilah as if it was a secret - "Denny Crane. I told you but you wouldn't listen. Denny fricken Crane. And nice dress."

With that, the two lawyers from Boston left without another word. Everyone else just stared after them for a long while.

Gunn, finally breaking the silence – "Who were those masked men?"

Cordelia – "I think… are we rich now? I've always wanted to be rich."

O-O-O-O

Outside the court room.

Denny Crane – "I tell you, they just make it too easy for us sometimes."

Alan Shore, agreeing – "Mmhmm."

Outside, a cute redhead and a saucy Asian girl stood up from a bench and intercepted the two Boston lawyers.

Bonny, the redhead – "Uh, hold on. How is the court case going?"

Alan Shore - "Going? It's already over. We won."

Bonny – "Already?"

Denny Crane, grinning widely – "Denny Crane, people. Denny Crane."

Bonny, a little unsure – "Oh. Uh, okay. Come with us then."

The two lawyers obeyed without reservation as the two succubae led them outside.

Denny, leaning over to Alan - "If they're hookers then I'm defending the red head."

Bonny - "We're not hookers."

The Asian slayer – "At least not anymore."

Denny Crane - "I meant no disrespect. Hookers are something very near and dear to my heart."

Alan Shore - "Denny, did I ever tell you that I admire you?"

Denny Crane - "Not recently."

Alan Shore - "Well, I do."

Denny Crane - "We're already having sleep-overs, Alan. That's as far as you're going to get."

Alan Shore - "As you wish."

The Asian slayer smirked at Bonny and tilted her head back towards the lawyers, which only confused Bonny.

Bonny – "What?"

The Asian slayer – "Aren't you're getting hungry? How about a little dine and dash before we take them back?"

Bonny sized up Denny and despite his power suit and powerful build, he reminded her of a teddy bear.

Bonny – "Why not. But if mine has a heart attack, I'm blaming it on you."

O-O-O-O

The human versions of Buffy and Willow were walking through the "Hospital" in the underground city. Buffy guessed her succubus alternate had gotten over her phobia of hospitals because this one was way scarier than any she'd seen before.

They were "visiting" the demon whose head Buffy had splattered before.

One of the nurses, if you could call them that, was leading them through the surprisingly labyrinthine jail ward where they keep the more dangerous and untamed of their numbers. All manner of screams and growls and bangs came out from the cells that lined the walls but the nurse didn't seem to notice at all.

The nurse, a chubby vampire girl with absurdly large breasts – "It's just up here."

The nurse sounded a little out of breath and Buffy guessed it must be partially because of the corset she was wearing under her bleached white nurse uniform.

They were led through some double doors into a waiting room of sorts, where Queen Buffy was waiting for them.

Queen Buffy – "Thanks for coming."

Human Buffy – "That demon, it's already grown back its head?"

Queen Buffy – "And more. It turns out that it was starving to death on that planet. Once we figured out what it ran on, it was more than easy to find enough food for it."

Human Buffy – "Why? What did it run on? Blood?"

Queen Buffy – "I think a lot of a questions could be answered if I just showed you what he looks like now. By the way, he calls himself Fetch. This way."

Queen Buffy led them into a dark room with a one-way mirror, looking into a well lit room where a nurse was consoling a bald and crying teenage boy.

At first, the humans didn't recognize what they were looking at. Then it slowly dawned over them.

Buffy – "It looks like Twist. It's an echo?"

Queen Buffy – "We think so. Turns out they feed on the presence of others. If no one's around, they slowly starve to death."

Willow – "What was he doing on earth that was?"

Queen Buffy – "That's a long story. Turns out, the weather on that planet wasn't an accident. It was orchestrated to make the earth uninhabitable."

Buffy – "By demons?"

Queen Buffy, shaking her head – "By humans. When humanity left earth for other planets, they made damn sure that nothing supernatural came along for the ride. It was their final solution to the demon problem. This echo had been working with one of the last remaining supernaturals on earth to reverse the weather system."

Buffy – "Do you know if that's possible? Because I'm sure earth-that-was would be useful to the alliance."

Queen Buffy – "As far as he's concerned, the weather should go back to normal once the weather machines are turned off. Then he'd only have to deal with the problem of introducing life back. I'd think most of it would be dead by now."

Willow – "How hard would it be to turn the weather machines off?"

Queen Buffy – "According to him, there's six hundred and forty two weather machines positioned across the globe. Each one has its own defenses and many of them are artificial islands. He's only managed to subvert seven so far. And before you ask, no, they're not interconnected. You can't hack all of them from one place. We've already checked that."

Buffy, looking through the one-way mirror – "What happened to the supernatural he was with? And what were they? They must've been tough to survive that world."

Queen Buffy – "According to him, they were a creature of mischief. From what we can figure, they were half demon, half fey. Nasty mix. And they were taken from earth-that-was by the eaters. When he attacked us, he thought we were eaters too. But then, he wasn't in his right mind."

Buffy, frowning – "So what was his problem with me?"

Queen Buffy – "Turns out they had a Buffy Summers in his dimension too. Slayer, just like us. That Buffy got a certain Willow Rosenberg cast a spell which activated all the potential slayers in the world."

Willow – "I did?"

Queen Buffy, nodding – "You did. Within a decade of that spell, vampires were pushed to the brink of extinction. But the slayers missed a few. The surviving vamps bided their time and the slayers eventually died from old age."

Buffy – "But it still sounds like we kicked their ass."

Queen Buffy – "I'm sure we did. But the problem was, the spell Willow cast killed the slayer line. After that, no new slayers were called. Well, not many. For some reason, it did happen but not reliably. The vamps bounced back, caused an apocalypse and got people to think that they weren't vampires at all but radioactive mutants. Some humans in power figured everything out and set to kill everything supernatural by killing earth itself."

Willow – "Humanity left earth and left everything behind."

Queen Buffy – "Exactly. They didn't distinguish between evil demons and the nicer variety either. Same went for half demons. Those demons that they caught but couldn't kill, like Fetch here, they buried them in molten metal slabs and then buried the slabs on the edge of tectonic plates. The idea was that the plates would pull the slabs down with them, into the mantle of the earth. Some of the slabs, they launched into the deep space."

Buffy – "Overkill much?"

Queen Buffy – "That's what I thought. But we've got a survivor right there."

Buffy, to her alternate – "You know, this guy could really do with some sunshine. Don't you think? Maybe a petting zoo?"

Willow – "We should bring him back to Twist and Tell. They'd want to know about this."

Human Buffy – "Yeah. They would."

Queen Buffy – "I don't think he's ready for that just yet. Give it a few days at least. He's a mess."

Buffy squinted at her alternate but couldn't detect any ulterior motive and shrugged.

Buffy – "Fine. You can keep him for three days. No longer."

Queen Buffy, finding that funny for some reason – "You're hard but fair."

O-O-O-O

The future versions of Xander and Willow were waiting in one of the battle planning rooms, which had chalk boards and a large round table full of little lead miniatures of tanks, soldiers and horse cavalry.

Both of them looking quite uncomfortable for some reason.

Future Willow sighed and realized that they'd have to have this conversation sooner or later.

Willow, facing Xander – "We might as face the big elephant in the room. We had sex."

Xander - "That wasn't me."

Willow – "Okay then, I had sex with the despicably evil demon inhabiting your body at the time."

Xander – "I guess that's more accurate."

Willow – "Do you want me to apologize? Because I can totally do that."

Xander – "No. that's not necessary. It's just, Willow, it's … you don't know what it's like to have the memories of what you and him did together. It's not that I have anything against what you did, it's just weird. And way too erotic."

Willow – "Is there anything I can do?"

Xander – "No. I think I just need time."

Willow – "Because I am happy you're back. Though, I think I'll miss evil-you."

Xander, smiling slightly – "And I know he missed you."

Willow, sounding a little needy – "Really?"

Xander – "For sure. He was actually thinking about turning you when his moral compass spell stopped working. But he figured that it wouldn't be the same. Also, he was scared about what you'd be like as a vampire."

Willow couldn't help but giggle at that as Tara walked in, with a Dawn in each hand. The Dawns were wearing matching jeans and black shirts. Willow frowned, realizing that they had been doing that a lot recently. They thought it was endlessly funny how people couldn't tell them apart.

Behind Dawn, came in the future version of Buffy and some of the tactical team she had been stuck in. The tac team were a bit dirty as they had come straight from the frontline but looked to be in good working condition.

Xander, to the tac team – "Hold on, future people only conversation. Could you all wait outside for a second? Same goes to you too, Tara. And take whichever Dawn isn't from the future with you."

Tara looked sorry as she detached from one of the Dawns and walked outside.

Dawn, suddenly not so happy as she closed the door – "What's this about, Xander?"

Xander, sitting down at table – "It might be nothing but there's something I want to pass by you all. It's about Faith."

The future versions of Buffy, Willow and Dawn looked at him with a measure of disdain.

Willow – "Is she dead or something?"

Dawn, shaking her head – "No, she's not dead. I just saw her. She was fine."

Buffy – "Don't tell me she's killed someone."

Xander – "She hasn't killed anyone. And, if you'd let me finish, we're the only people that know what happened to Faith last time around."

Willow – "About how she went evil, killed a bunch of people, slept with Buffy's boyfriend –"

Buffy, quickly – "Twice."

Willow – "- And worked for the evil mayor of Sunnydale?"

Xander – "Yes, that's what I'm talking about."

Buffy, half pouting with confusion – "You don't think she'll do that again, do you?"

Dawn – "Actually, she can't, even if she wanted to. The mayor's already been killed here."

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "I know. I killed him this time around too. I didn't mean she'd literally do the same thing again. I meant that she's an at risk teen. She might be swayed towards the dark side again."

Willow – "If you want to get technical, we're sort of already on the dark side."

Buffy – "Huh?"

Dawn, laughing – "Hey, she's right. We're creatures of the night. We're totally evil."

Xander groaned – "I'm trying to be serious here."

Dawn – "Sorry. Go on."

Xander – "It might just be me but have any of you noticed a change in her recently?"

Dawn, shrugging – "Not really. She's still a psycho. Still sexually harassing Tara every chance she gets too."

Willow – "I still don't get that! Why is Faith chasing Tara?"

Dawn, laughing – "That's funny coming from you."

Xander, trying not to laugh – "I'm with Dawn on that."

Willow – "Okay, Tara's great but why is Faith after her?"

Dawn, looking sideways at Buffy – "I think she likes blondes."

Xander, to Willow – "What's to get? Tara's a great girl. There's not really anything not to like about her."

Dawn, laughing anew – "Says the man who forced her to wear fetish gear?"

Xander – "Hey, that wasn't me. I didn't have a soul."

Dawn – "Yeah yeah, excuses excuses. You so want her."

Xander, hesitantly – "Uh, well – "

Dawn – "See. You can't deny it."

Willow, looking horrified – "Fetish gear? Xander, what did evil you do to her?"

Xander – "Nothing sexual, honest. But not for lack of trying. Umm, back to Faith. Recently, she's changed."

Dawn – "Not from where I'm sitting."

Xander – "No, really, she has. It happened after that vamp candy incident."

Willow, not too impressed – "Where you had sex with her again?"

Xander – "I'm not going into that but, yes, I had sex with her. After that, she's started acting differently. Even Tara's noticed."

Buffy – "Acting differently how?"

Xander – "Well, she's more open, for one. She's been telling Tara and me things I never thought I'd hear from her. "

Buffy – "That sounds like a good thing."

Dawn, laughing some more – "Yeah. Yay you. Opened her good and hard."

Xander – "Trust me, open is not good with Faith. It means she's stopped caring."

Willow – "So business as usual?"

Xander – "No, I…. Okay, I didn't want to bring this up but after I was turned, evil-me found his way to Boston. At that time, Faith was in Boston too. Evil-me helped her out."

Buffy, raising an eyebrow – "He did?"

Xander – "Yes, he did."

Dawn, to Buffy – "Evil Xander always was a bit weird."

Xander – "That's putting it lightly. Anyway, when I was in Boston, Faith wasn't in good emotional shape. Not at all. In fact, she was acting a lot like she is now. She needs something that she's not getting."

Buffy – "She'll snap out of it. Faith's a tough nut to crack."

Xander – "Buff, maybe you don't know about the statistics for newly turned slayers. Around thirteen percent commit suicide within the first two years of being turned."

Buffy – "Yeah but Faith wouldn't…."

Buffy frowned as she realized that Faith had never had strong ties to life and living.

Dawn – "Maybe she just needs to get laid. Hey, I'm not joking. That's Faith in a nutshell. Sex makes her happy."

Xander, sighing – "Actually, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I'm getting the impression that Faith's after a serious relationship."

Willow – "I'm having trouble believing you said that too."

Xander – "It's weird but I have to remind myself that this isn't the Faith I knew. This Faith is clingy."

Willow – "She's not that different. She still hates me."

Dawn – "And me."

Buffy – "And I'm still getting unwanted lesbian vibes from her."

Willow snorted at what she thought was a joke.

Buffy – "Wait, you mean you guys couldn't tell?"

Willow – "Uh, we'd always suspected."

Xander, unrepentant – "In my case, I'd say I'd always fantasized."

Dawn – "Maybe this thing with Faith is hormonal. Vampires still have hormones, right? Cos the slayers get that PMS thing twice a year."

Xander – "It could be that. Or it could be that this time around, she's had sex with someone more than a double digit amount of times and has formed an emotional connection… and by the way, that person isn't me. After I left Faith in Sunnydale, she spent most her time in Buffy's bed."

Dawn – "Then that makes it easy. Get her a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Since she hates Willow and me, it'll have to be one of you."

Buffy – "Bags not."

Willow – "You might want to look into the dating service down here. You can find all sorts of things in it. Girls, boys, demons, doms, subs, sires, childes – Oooh, maybe this is a vampire thing. Vampires need family. They don't feel right without it. Find her someone to mix her blood with. I've actually been considering trying that."

Dawn, nodding sincerely – "You totally should do it. The warm fuzzies from it are amazing."

Xander, wincing – "That's disgusting but probably good advice."

Willow – "And if she wants someone she knows, maybe you could talk to some of our alternates."

Dawn, with a sour look on her face – "If you suggest Phoenix, I'm going to punch you in the face."

Willow, sniggering – "I was actually thinking of Fox."

Buffy – "Eww. That's so wrong. You do know that he's the male version of Faith, right?"

Willow – "Well, yeah. But we're talking about Faith here. I think they'd both go for it."

The door to the room opened and Queen Buffy walked in, along with Joke's tactical team and several others, quickly filling the room and ending the future-people-only conversation.

As Queen Buffy opened her mouth to address them, she saw her second favorite redhead in the world, Bonny. As the younger Willow saw Bonny, she straightened her back a little and did her best to look down at the other redhead.

Bonny, halfway in the doorframe - "Buffy. That thing you wanted is done."

Queen Buffy, smiling with appreciation – "Dependable as always."

Willow, sniffing at Bonny – "Why do you smell of cigars?"

Bonny shrugged despite knowing why.

Bonny, to Buffy – "So, want some help with LA?"

Queen Buffy – "No, I think I'll be fine with what I've got planned. You might want to talk to Violet though. She's running low on slayers."

Bonny frowned a little while Queen Buffy just smirked.

Queen Buffy – "Don't tell me you've still got problems with the Violet the Violater."

Bonny – "It's not that. I just… worry about you in battle."

Queen Buffy melted a little and walked over to Bonny to give her a hug.

Queen Buffy, hugging Bonny – "That's sweet."

Bonny poked her tongue out at Willow during the hug, which Vamp Willow saw but didn't know how to react to.

Queen Buffy, smiling as she pulled back from the hug – "You shouldn't worry about me. I'm your sire. Worrying is my job, not yours."

Bonny nodded and went on her way, while Willow frowned.

Vamp Willow, whispering once Bonny was out of earshot – "Bonny poked her tongue at me."

Queen Buffy, finding this funny – "So? Do something about it."

Vamp Willow – "Do what?"

Queen Buffy, tweaking Vamp Willow's nose with a finger – "I'm sure you'll figure it out sooner or later."

Vamp Willow – "Figure what out?"

Queen Buffy shrugged good-naturedly while others in the room were getting impatient.

Buddy – "So Boss, what did you pull us off zombie duty for?"

Queen Buffy, turning towards everyone else – "We have it on very good authority that Mister Shadow is infiltrating another dimension. He's only just started so hopefully he hasn't dug himself in too much."

Human Buffy – "Which dimension is this?"

Queen Buffy – "Yours."

Human Buffy, instantly alarmed – "Then shouldn't we be having this conversation with the military bigwigs from my world too?"

Queen Buffy – "Normally, yes. But with the tactics he's using, uh, no, the military would cause more harm than good here."

Human Willow – "Why? They've been pretty darn helpful so far."

Vamp Willow - "Do you know anything about Wolfram and Hart?"

Human Buffy frowned while Human Willow seemed to know more.

Human Willow – "Aren't they that evil law firm that's harassing Angel?"

Human Buffy – "I knew that too but beyond that, no, we don't know anything. Angel never talks shop."

Queen Buffy – "They're not just an evil law firm, they're a building block of the demon population in both ours worlds. If we let the military snoop around in their offices, they'll get all sorts of information on the demon populations and then…."

Vamp Willow – "Genocide."

Queen Buffy – "Sorry but it happens every time."

Their human alternates seemed to consider this very seriously.

Human Buffy – "Okay, I'll admit, I can't rule that scenario out. But do you think you've got enough slayers here to handle Wolfram and Hart by yourself?"

Queen Buffy – "Maybe not. We'll take care of Wolfram and Hart and if the eaters become a problem, we'll alert the authorities."

Human Buffy – "For the record, I don't like this. We don't even know anything about Wolfram and Hart."

Queen Buffy – "You might not but we've brought in an expert on Wolfram and Hart. Fred?"

Fred, sitting at the back – "Here."

Queen Buffy, explaining to everyone – "Illyria, the elder god which infected Fred, worked inside Wolfram and Hart."

Fred – "That's right. Though, urm, there's something you should know about that."

Queen Buffy, frowning – "Is it important?"

Fred – "Sort of. It seems that ensoulment spells don't really work the same way with me as the do with Angel and Spike and Xander and everyone who didn't have a soul. For me, I'm entirely in charge but I've got Illyria as this constantly critical voice in my head, second guessing everything I do. She's the worlds worst backseat driver. I've really had enough of her calling me a worm baby and a silly little herd animal and I agree with her that it would be mutually beneficial if we somehow extracted her out of my brain."

Xander, looking a bit horrified – "You have Illyria inside your head?! I bet she's going insane trapped in there."

Fred – "Like you wouldn't believe. I've been asking some watchers about this but Illyria wanted something more official. She says she'll only aid with her memories if Buffy swears to do her best to free her from my pitiful shell."

Queen Buffy – "Uh, sure. As long as she swears not to do anything too elder goddy."

Xander, wincing – "That might be asking a bit too much from here. But I can vouch for her."

Queen Buffy – "Okay then. I swear."

Fred, cheerfully – "Great! Oh, and Xander, I'm quoting Illyria here. She wants to bestow a modest amount of gratitude upon your unworthy carcass as you exceeded her meager expectations of you and even your continued post-souled obedience pleases her."

Xander – "Really? Wow. That's praise indeed coming from her."

Fred, frowning – "Now she wants you to know that yes, it is indeed praise."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, Angel's hotel foyer.

Angel had a phone to his ear and was listening intently, while Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley waited with abated breath.

Cordelia – "So?"

Angel, surprisingly calm as he put the phone done – "We've got it."

Cordelia, still unsure – "We've got ten million dollars?"

Angel, nodding – "Yes."

Cordelia and Gunn whooped with joy, started jumping around and both hugged Wesley at the same time, causing him to jump up and down too. Angel couldn't help but smile at that.

Gunn, laughing – "I can't fricken believe this. What are we going to do with that much cash?"

Wesley – "I'm thinking we invest it."

Cordelia, laughing too – "In what? Lamborghinis?"

Wesley – "No, I mean in actual investments."

Cordelia, at Angel – "What's wrong? You don't seem to happy about this. Not that it's unusual for you but come on! Ten million dollars!"

Angel – "I can't help feeling that there's something more to this. Don't you think it's weird how a living legend in law just happened to wonder in and take my case?"

Cordelia – "I'm sure these things happen all the time with Wolfram and Hart. The other law firms hate their guts."

Wesley – "I think Cordelia has a point. They'd take any opportunity to take them down Wolfram and Hart down a peg or two."

Buffy, walking in the front door – "Actually, Angel's right. It wasn't a coincidence at all. We orchestrated it."

The members of Angel investigations stared as a small swarm of girls wandered into the hotel foyer.

VampFaith, looking around – "Nice digs. Better than my hole in the ground back home."

Cordelia, cheerful but a little confused – "Buffy!? Who are your friends?"

Buffy, frowning – "Uhh, weren't you told about us?"

Angel – "Weapons."

Gunn – "What?"

Angel – "Weapons! That's not Buffy!"

As Angel investigations ran for their weapons locker, the slayers stood back and tried to not look too threatening.

Buffy – "Whoa there, this isn't what it looks like. We're on your side."

Angel, catching a very shiny sword – "You're a vampire."

Buffy – "Well, some of us are. But seriously, you think that'll help you, Angel? You know I can kick your ass."

Vamp Faith – "You can? Can I see that?"

Future Xander – "I know I'd pay money to see that."

Future Buffy – "No one is kicking anyone's ass. Especially not Angel's."

Gunn – "How are there two of Buffys?"

Yet another Buffy, entering through the front door – "Actually there's more than two."

Another, more mature Faith – "Hey, where's the love, guys?"

Angel sniffed in Buffy's direction then frowned and lowered his sword.

Angel – "Buffy? What's going on?"

Human Buffy – "We didn't want to phone first, just in case the lines were tapped. Sorry for springing this on you but we've got some business in the area."

Some more slayers from Joke's tac team came in and that seemed to be all of them.

Catherine, who had just entered with the stragglers – "The immediate area is clear. But we should check the interior, just to make sure."

Angel – "Hold on, no one is checking my interior. You can all get out, now."

Human Buffy – "Angel, it's okay. They're on our side."

Queen Buffy – "I can't believe you didn't tell him about us."

Human Buffy – "I could've sworn we did. I thought it would've come up after that vampcandy thing."

Gunn – "Are they on candy too?"

Human Buffy – "No, they've got souls."

Angel, irked – "What? All of them?"

Queen Buffy – "There's still some controversy over that. Personally, I don't feel very soulful."

Angel, to Human Buffy – "If she doesn't have a soul, we can't trust her."

Human Buffy, as if gossiping – "I think she's in denial."

Queen Buffy gave her human twin a glare then turned to Angel with more neutral face.

Queen Buffy, explaining – "We're going to attack Wolfram and Hart. Thought you might want to know since it's in your city and they're working with the eaters."

It looked like none in Angel investigations knew what they were talking about.

Queen Buffy – "Wow, you've really been keeping them in the dark, haven't you?"

Human Buffy – "Not on purpose. We just don't talk that much anymore."

Outtaverse Faith, to Angel investigations – "Let me put it simply. Wolfram and Hart are helping the bad guy we want to kill. So we're taking care of Wolfram and Hart to hurt them. Wanna join in?"

Angel and the rest of his team seemed hesitant but also interested at the same time.

Angel – "What did you have in mind?"

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later.

Three Buffy's, Fred, Joke and Angel investigations were standing around the hotel counter, where maps and Polaroid pictures were laying, for everyone to see.

Fred – "Thanks to Illyria, we know how Wolfram and Hart functions now. Each Wolfram and Hart branch has exactly the same layout. The layout itself acts as a mystical focus for dark energies found on earth. When it's working, it funnels the energy from earth to the senior partners who live in some other dimension. But because of the quarantine, it's not working. Anyone with the right know how can tap into it. That's what we think Mister Shadow is trying to do."

Future Buffy – "Okay. Evil funnel. So how about we blow it up?"

Fred – "Might not work. There are so many built in defenses, I'm sure we can't just blow it up. For all I know, we could cut the entire building in half and it would float in mid air. To destroy Wolfram and Hart, we need to take out the circle of thorns. They're an influential group of people and demons who live in LA."

Queen Buffy – "Illyria's already given us the identities of the local circle of thorns. So that's not a problem. None of them should be too hard to get rid of."

Fred – "Once we've taken care of the circle of thorns, we have to deal with the liaison. But I think we've got enough numbers for that. But for the LA branch, there's one more thing we have to worry about. The anti-Angel weapon."

Angel, raising an eyebrow – "The anti-Angel weapon?"

Fred – "It's a weapon designed just to kill Angel. Wolfram and Hart had it made in case they ever needed to kill Angel."

Angel – "I'm sort of flattered. What sort of weapon are we talking about?"

Fred – "It's this huge blob of biomass in the basement of Wolfram and Hart. When activated, or when Angel gets to close to it, it turns into a small army of various different creatures, all of which will home in on Angel. Oh, and some of them breath fire."

Human Buffy – "But we can blow that up, right?"

Fred, thinking about it – "Yes, I think that would work just fine."

Queen Buffy – "We've got small teams to take care of the individual circle of thorn members, I'll assign some people to take out the anti-angel weapon in the basement. Angel, you go with Human me and Fred to handle the ground floor and tunnels. Make sure the liaison doesn't get out. You'll get reinforcements as everyone else finishes their job."

Human Buffy – "So what are you going to do?"

Queen Buffy, grinning – "I'm going to take a more direct route."

O-O-O-O

Wolfram and Hart, top floor.

Mister Shadow looked out a window at LA without moving. It was almost as if he was waiting for something.

The door burst open and Eve stormed in with two security guards tailing behind her.

Eve, angrily – "You haven't been straight with us."

Mister Shadow slowly turned to face her but didn't reply.

Eve – "Our intelligence suggests that Angel has befriended an Army of vampires. But that's not all. These vampires, they're slayers! All of them. You didn't say anything about an army of slayers."

Mister Shadow – "And you neglected to ask. That's what you get for not following through with due diligence."

Mister Shadow sounded like he was enjoying himself, although it was hard to tell with his dramatically low voice.

Eve – "You knew!?"

Mister Shadow – "Of course I knew. I know everything. And now, your pitiful law firm will be removed from the face of the earth by this inconvenient rabble of slayers."

Eve – "But I'm your liaison. Without me, your drones can't invade this world properly."

Mister Shadow – "I don't need a liaison if I'm here in person."

Mister Shadow's hood turned suddenly, as if hearing something then slowly turned back to Eve.

Mister Shadow – "Here they come. Fight well, Wolfram and Hart."

Eve blinked as Mister Shadow turned into a heavy black smoke which fell and rolled across the floor until it had completely dissipated.

Eve – "Well… fuck."

The security guard's radios crackled and let out frantic cries for backup.

One of the security guards – "We're being attacked! Vampires on the ground floor."

Eve – "Get a helicopter ready."

Then there was an audible clunk sound as something banged against the bulletproof glass windows. Eve and the security guards stared at a relatively small, round device that was being suspended in midair by rope. It banged against the window again and this time clung to the metal window frame, probably with magnetic force.

Eve, squinting – "What is –"

BOOOM!

The small device and several others exploded around Wolfram and Hart, breaking in the windows, filling the area with smoke and knocking over those near windows.

Before Eve's senses cleared, more ropes appeared, along with a number of slayers abseiling down the side of the building.

Both she and the slayers seemed surprised at the other as the slayers jumped in off the ropes.

Queen Buffy – "That's her!"

Fox, laughing as he picked up Eve in a fireman's carry – "Too easy."

Eve, as her security guards were artfully disarmed – "Hey! Let me go!"

Through the smoke, they could hear more security guards running in their direction and the tac team seemed ready to take them on but Fox had other ideas.

Fox – "We got what we needed, let's just go!"

Instead of fighting, the slayers turned and ran, straight out the window they entered.

The security guards kept running after them but stopped at the open window. They were fast enough to see the vampires falling towards the earth, with Eve screaming her lungs out all the way down.

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	69. 20c Too many slayers

Episode 20, chapter C : Too many slayers

Warning : Contains vampire violence.

O-O-O-O

Fox handed a hogtied and gagged Eve over to Kennedy and some slayer turned vampires in the back of an armored car. They closed the door and Buddy pulled out his radio.

Buddy, shouting into his walky talky – "We've secured the liaison in the armored van."

Some girl on the radio – "Then we need you back here. We've got unexpected hostiles."

O-O-O-O

Ground floor of Wolfram and Hart.

The spacious foyer was a war zone. Furniture, bins and desks had been toppled over and an elevator shaft had been torn open with high explosives.

Security guards and some particularly disfigured demons were doing their best to fight back against the slayers. The security guards had stakes, tazors and machine guns while the demons had bigger machineguns and laser weaponry. No one knew where the demons had come from but they seemed to be trained in modern warfare.

The slayers on the ground floor had found themselves heavily outnumbered and outgunned This was at least partially due to the fact that most of the slayers were somewhere other than the ground floor. Trish, one of Joke's tac team members, had brought along a modern composite bow and Xander had brought along a very large pistol but everyone else on Buffy's side had to make due with throwing things. No one wanted to wade through the withering fire that Wolfram and Hart were letting out.

In fact, they were losing ground rapidly, as the demons kept pushing forwards and they kept pulling back. Often they'd literally be pulling their cover with them as there wasn't a lot to hide behind. Even more demons were coming down through the elevators and it seemed more and more like this was a losing battle.

Future Xander was reloading when he saw, rather than heard, a Buffy yelling in his direction. He couldn't hear what she was saying over the deafening gunfire. Before he could figure it out, Tara yanked him to the side as an armored van smashed through the windows behind him. It barreled through the foyer and slid neatly between the two rows of elevators, doing unimaginably brutal things to the security guards and demons that couldn't get out of the way quickly enough.

The van kept on going, skidded a little and then drove straight out of the building through another set of windows as it attracted gunfire and laserfire.

Once outside, the van's engine started spouting out black smoke but it lined itself up for another bout of vehicular homicide As the guards and demons became very fixated on the van, the slayers took this opportunity and charged with supernatural speed to turn the tides.

There was a very brief last stand by the guards and demons, with some of them letting out a burst of bullets or laserfire but it was over surprisingly quick and the damage done to the slayers was surprisingly small too. Many of the slayers had been shot, some at point blank range but they managed to shrug it off except for one slayer who got hit with a laser and was now missing her arm.

Armless slayer, looking down at the cleanly amputated limb – "You'd think this would hurt."

Joke picked up the amputated arm and inspected the damage. Then she shrugged.

Joke – "Maybe it be reattached. It'll save you regrowing it back."

Human Buffy, curious – "Vampires can grow back limbs?"

Joke – "You didn't know?"

The elevator bell dinged and a new batch of demons rushed out, only to be group decapitated by Fox swinging a sword so huge that guillotine might be more appropriate a name. This sword didn't even stop when it hit the inside of the elevator. It cut straight through the elevator shaft as if it was tissue paper. Very loud tissue paper.

Buddy, grinning – "What would you girls do without us guys?"

Human Buffy, staring at the headless demons – "Holy cow!"

Future Buffy, explaining – "The male slayers get even more super strength than us."

Human Buffy – "So I see."

Joke, giving the armless girl back her arm – "Go with the van, you're out of this fight for now. Enjoy some down time."

The armless girl grumbled but ran off after the van while some of the slayers considered picking up the firearms the demons were carrying. They would definitely come in handy if they ran into too many more of them. Other slayers were more interested in the demons themselves, who seemed to be wearing military style uniforms.

Buddy – "So who are these guys?"

Joke – "The scourge."

Human Buffy – "Of Europe?"

Joke – "No. Different scourge."

Trish – "They're demon nazis. Demon supremacists who want to remove all traces of humanity from demonkind. They usually go around killing half demons."

Future Buffy – "I think I've fought some of these guys before. They were kidnapping street kids and using them for slave labor."

Trish – "Sounds like them."

Joke, pulling one of her throwing knives out of a dead demon – "But what are they doing here? Wolfram and Hart is too human friendly for them."

Human Buffy, looking at a laser rifle with distaste – "And where did they get these guns from?"

Future Buffy – "That's a good question. When I fought them, they only had medieval weaponry."

Future Xander took the laser rifle off Human Buffy and looked it over. Then he nodded as he figured something out.

Future Xander, wiping some blood off the dirty weapon – "It's manmade. This one is called an Acheron thirty three hundred and it's got a serial number. It must be from that universe where everyone flies around in spaceships."

Buddy, groaning – "Great. Mister Shadow is getting allies."

Another elevator dinged.

Joke – "Fox. Would you get that?"

Fox, readying his sword – "My pleasure."

O-O-O-O

A long line of lawyers were running down a supposedly secret flight of stairs until they ran into some slayers at the bottom. The slayers had little trouble taking down the lawyers at the front of the line but those behind them were more problematic due to limited space. Some of the lawyers screamed and all of them that could run did their best to. They ran out onto different floors, causing the slayers to split up to chase them down. Vamp Faith was in the slayers doing the chasing.

She followed her fellow slayers by jumping up the gap between the stairs then broke off to chase down lawyers on one of the floors. The staircase was flooded with fear and it made her more manically excited. It felt like a drug.

BANG! Went a shotgun which she narrowly avoided, only getting a small amount of shot in her arm. Instead of hurting, it felt kind of nice and the shocked look of the guard when she wrenched the shotgun out of his hands was icing on the cake.

He got over the shock fast though and brought up a stake to impale her. Faith pushed it aside and jumped on him, knocking him to the ground.

Guard, as Faith's gameface turned on – "I only work here!"

Faith snarled, opened her mouth wide then bit a chunk of the guard's face off.

O-O-O-O

In the basement of Wolfram and Hart.

Two slayers led four human soldiers deeper into the dark basement. The soldiers were all carrying large bloated backpacks.

One of the slayers, looking at some blueprints – "It should be along here."

The other slayer pushed open a large door, ready to smite anything that jumped out at her with a large cleaver. Instead, she was met with a bright white room.

A very empty bright white room.

The giant vat of evil that they had come to blow up just wasn't there.

The slayer with the map – "It should be right here."

One of the soldiers, finding something in the corner of the room – "Guys. Is that what I think it is?"

All eyes turned towards the nuclear device with a very obvious LED counter counting down and a smashed control panel.

Another of the soldiers – "Oh yeah, that's a nuke."

The slayer with the map took a radio off one of the soldiers and thought about what she was going to say.

Slayer with the map, with some hesitation – "Uhh, command. We've got a negative on the anti-angel weapon. It's missing. But we do have a nuke counting down. We've got five minutes until it goes off. Please advise."

There was some hesitation on the other end too but finally they got a response.

Some guy on the radio – "Did you say you've got a nuke?"

Slayer with map – "Affirmative. We have a nuclear bomb. Four minutes and thirty seconds to go. Please advise."

There was some more hesitation from the radio, which caused the slayer to growl.

Slayer with map – "Please advise! Goddamnit, someone get a bomb tech down here right now!"

O-O-O-O

Outside of Wolfram and Hart.

Queen Buffy and Human Buffy were overlooking lawyers being forced out onto the street, where the slayers and a bunch of soldiers processed them. The process involved having the lawyers lie face down on the ground where their thumbs are tied behind their back and they're searched for weapons.

Human Buffy – "So what are you going to do with these lawyers?"

Queen Buffy - "Over the next few months, they'll all have their memories forcibly altered so they don't remember a thing about working for Wolfram and Hart. We'll reassign them new jobs, new residence and let them live new lives."

Human Buffy - "You can do that?"

Queen Buffy, nodding – "Over the years, we've gotten very good at manipulating minds."

Human Buffy – "Wouldn't that sort of power be a slippery slope?"

Queen Buffy simply raised an eyebrow at her human alternate in reply.

Human Buffy – "Oh, right. Forgot who I was talking to. You're all kinds of slippery."

While Human Buffy considered the ramifications of this, Joke discretely pulled Queen Buffy aside.

Joke, talking quietly - "The whole building is secured. But there was a problem with that new girl, Faith."

Queen Buffy, obviously concerned - "What sort of problem? Is she okay?"

Joke – "She is fine. She vamped out on the lawyers. There were casualties. We had to knock her out. It took a lot more force than it should have. This wasn't brought on by lack of blood."

Queen Buffy's face scrunched up as she tried to figure this out and hoped that Faith wasn't using drugs.

Queen Buffy – "It might have something to do with her alternate being a demon. Keep her locked down for now. Take her back with the wounded. We'll deal with her in the morning."

After that, Joke turned to leave but stopped as everyone's radios crackled with urgent pleas.

Queen Buffy, putting her radio to her ear – "Did you say something about a nuclear weapon?"

The radio spouted out more static filled speech, a result of someone talking too loudly into their walky talky.

Queen Buffy – "Three minutes? Crap. I'll be right there."

Queen Buffy looked around at her companions, who were standing still, trying to figure out how to survive this situation.

Queen Buffy, as she walked towards Fox – "Fox! Sword! Now!"

Fox tossed his huge sword to her, which she caught with surprising ease.

Queen Buffy, to Future Xander – "Sorry. But I've got to borrow her. We'll be right back."

Queen Buffy grabbed Tara with her free hand and then exploded into smoke.

O-O-O-O

In the basement.

Two of the soldiers were trying to figure out how to open the large device to disarm it while everyone else had left. They weren't having much luck. Someone had welded the screws on the case. There was no way to open it without cutting it open.

Both of them were surprised when Buffy and Tara appeared with a large puff of smoke.

Queen Buffy – "You two, leave. We'll take care of it."

One of the soldiers – "You've had experience with disarming nuclear weapons?"

Buffy – "Yeah, you could say that."

The two soldiers figured that the nuke was now someone else's problem and decided to hightail it out of there.

Buffy, analyzing the nuke – "Hmm. It's a big one. Will probably turn in LA into a crater… a bigger crater."

Tara, looking scared – "What am I doing here?"

Buffy – "Tara. Use that fancy sanguitechnomancy you've been learning. Try to slow down the clock. While you do that, I'll disarm it."

Tara, finding this more than a littler surreal – "You really know how to disarm a nuke?"

Buffy – "Yup. See, this is a simple rod design. Two explosive parcels on each end propel nuclear materials towards each other with enough force to reach critical mass in the middle."

Buffy hefted Fox's insanely large sword up onto shoulder and grinned.

Buffy – "All I have to do is cut it in half. But that might take a while so get with the bleeding, witch."

O-O-O-O

Outside.

Joke, putting away her radio – "Let's keep doing what we're doing, people. Don't worry about the nuke. Buffy's got it in hand."

Angel – "She does?"

Human Buffy – "I do? Shouldn't we be evacuating Hollywood?"

Joke – "I'm sure we'll be fine."

Everyone else was working quite hurriedly, as if doing their best to get out of the area within the next few minutes. Lawyers were being loaded onto large moving trucks and locked up. Both Buffy and Angel noticed that a range of mystical and high tech objects were being loaded onto trucks too. They also noticed that there was a distinct lack of police presence. In fact, Buffy suspected that Hollywood might have already have been evacuated but couldn't figure out how that was possible.

O-O-O-O

Behind the Hollywood sign.

Mister Shadow looked down upon LA as the slayers were mopping up their mess at Wolfram and Hart. The nuclear warhead should have gone off by now but it hadn't.

Mister Shadow – "Plan B."

He turned to the very large plastic vat that he had teleported up there and held his hands towards it.

Mister Shadow – "Grow."

The vat broke as writhing Technicolor goo broke out of it. The goo did indeed grow, bubbling and forming limbs as it did.

O-O-O-O

Angel, riding in the back of an army van with Human Buffy – "This isn't how I thought this would happen."

Buffy – "How what would happen?"

Angel – "This? Taking down Wolfram and Hart."

Buffy, laughing – "I don't think any of us planned for an army of slayers."

Angel – "Sure but… I thought it would be more climatic. You know, a valiant struggle between good and evil."

Buffy – "I'm okay with easy. I had a small valiant struggle between good and evil earlier and the bad guys brought guns. It wasn't that fun."

Over the complaining lawyers and over the sound of the large convoy of trucks, they heard something. It was a soft rumble that slowly grew louder.

Angel – "Do you hear that?"

Buffy, as the rumbling started getting quite loud – "What is that?"

Before they figured out the sound, something hit the truck they were in. Fire washed over the open end to the truck as its tires popped and it toppled over sideways.

O-O-O-O

In another truck, a freaked out slayer yelled – "What was that!?"

Fred, next to the freaked out slayer – "That's the anti-angel weapon. It's active."

Freaked out slayer – "Really? Because that's not what it looked like to me."

O-O-O-O

Angel and Buffy helped the lawyers out of the toppled truck as a flying, fire breathing creature circled above them.

Angel, stopping to stare – "Is that a DRAGON?! I've always wanted to kill one of those."

Buffy – "So not the time. Angel! Look! Giant mob of demons."

A truck parked by and a slayer yelled out frantically out the back – "Forget the lawyers. Jump on!"

Buffy and Angel figured that maybe this was a good idea but weren't ready to leave the lawyers yet. The soldier who had been driving their truck jumped on without giving the lawyers another thought.

Frantic slayer – "I'm sure they can take care of themselves. Get the hell on!"

Angel took another look at the immensely thick crowd rushing towards them and made Buffy's decision for her. He lifted her up and threw her in, then jumped in after her.

Angel, at Buffy's angry look – "She's right, we need to go."

The slayer banged the side of the truck and it started driving again.

Buffy's glare turned to a queasy sort of fear when she saw the dragon flying in their direction again.

Formerly frantic slayer, to the soldier she had just let on – "Soldier boy, use your gun. Shoot that thing."

The soldier pulled out his sidearm, looked down at it then back at the dragon flying towards them. Then he looked at the slayer as if she was crazy.

Slayer, taking the gun off him – "Lemme show you how it's done."

She simply pointed at the dragon then squeezed off round after round until the gun's magazine was empty. At first it looked like it wasn't doing anything until the dragon coiled in midair and slid downwards at a surprisingly violent speed into a parking lot.

Then it exploded, bringing a grin to the slayers face.

Slayer, handing the gun back to the soldier – "See. That wasn't hard."

Then something grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her out the back of the speeding truck. The truck behind them ran over her as if she was nothing more than a speed bump and this brought their attention to the swarm of creatures that were managing to keep up with the trucks.

One of them jumped towards Angel but Buffy kicked it out the back, causing it to fly over to the side of the road and wrap it's spine around a lamppost. A second creature leaped at them and Angel punched it in the face, making it fall and tumble across the road, only to get run over by the truck behind them too.

Soldier, yelling into his radio – "We need reinforcements!!"

His radio – "Proceed to the gate. Reinforcements are already on route."

A second voice on the radio – "We got eaters!"

Something heavy hit their van and it's back swung around violently, bouncing Buffy, Angel and the soldier out the back.

They rolled along the pavement with surprisingly little injury. Even the soldier managed to pick himself up when they saw the mammoth sized four legged eater with large tusks. It was obviously what stopped their truck.

Buffy - "Is that an elephant?!"

More face eaters warped into existence around the elephant and started running towards them.

Angel, picking up the soldier – "Inside there! Now!"

The soldier didn't argue as it seemed like all the face eaters were running towards him for some weird reason.

Angel took them through two solid looking wooden doors, into an equally solid looking church. Then he closed the door and Buffy lowered the bar on it to keep it closed.

A voice behind them – "Excuse me? Can I help you?"

All three of them turned around to find a fully stocked church.

Buffy, her eyes widening at the huge crowd of people looking back at her – "Oh crap."

The solid wooden door practically exploded blew inwards, as the elephant eater charged it. Then elephant moved back, letting the more humanoid shaped eaters pushed their way past the remnants of the door and faced off with Angel and Buffy. The churchgoers screamed with some disbelief at the demonic abominations invading their church.

As they reared back to the back of the church, face eaters warped in around the church, breaking pews in half and fracturing floorboards with their weight.

Buffy pulled out a stake, the soldier reloaded his pistol and Angel felt more than a little inadequate as he lost his sword back when their second van had crashed.

The face eaters encircled them then stopped, causing Buffy and Angel to wonder what they were doing.

Soldier – "What are they doing?"

Buffy, as the face eaters started becoming blurry – "I do not know."

The space around the face eaters started warping and the warpiness grew. The three good guys backed into each other to avoid whatever it was that the eaters were releasing.

O-O-O-O

Joke, yelling at a soldier in the back of a van – "We've got eaters warping in! Turn the subspace dampener. Now!"

The soldier was huddled behind a large metallic device that could've been a fridge.

The soldier – "I told you, it's damaged. If it's not aligned correctly, it can explode. It could kill us all."

Joke, turning her game face on – "Do it or I'll kill you instead."

The soldier felt like this was a very real threat and push the button to activate the subspace dampener. A bright blue but relatively harmless light pulsed out from it.

O-O-O-O

In the church, the blurriness was about to reach the three good guys in the church when a bright blue light passed through the room. The heavily warping space snapped back violently, mutilating some of the face eaters. Some lost their legs, others had parts fused together. A few had even fused to other face eaters.

Some of the churchgoers screamed anew but Angel took this as an opportunity to wrench a slightly warped sword out of a face eater's hands.

Soldier – "What was that?"

Buffy, kicking an eater over – "Don't know. Don't care. Figure it out later."

Outside the church, the slayers were having a hard time keeping the anti-angel creatures at bay. Quite a few were falling back to the church. One of these fall-backers was Queen Buffy, who ran towards the trio in the church.

Human Buffy – "Boy, am I glad to see you. You don't think we could Oberon down here, do you?"

Queen Buffy, grabbing Angel by the arm – "Sorry, she's in the middle of a diversionary attack in another universe right now. So no, she's not available. And you don't mind if I borrow your Angel, do you? It's just these anti-Angel freaks are homing in on him. I thought I'd take him somewhere we can defend him properly."

Both Queen Buffy and Angel disappeared with a puff of smoke and in a surprisingly short amount of time, the battle outside lessened as the anti-Angel swarm turned around and continued on their single minded quest to kill Angel.

Things within the church had quieted down and Buffy felt a little awkward since all eyes were on her and she figured they wanted some sort of explanation.

Buffy, looking around – "Nice church."

The soldier next to her – "I like the stained glass windows. I bet they look great during the day."

Buffy, agreeing – "Mmm."

O-O-O-O

and Angel appeared from a puff of smoke inside the Hyperion hotel, Angel's base of operations.

Queen Buffy stumbled a little afterwards and shook her head clear.

Angel, keeping her upright – "Are you okay?"

Queen Buffy - "Yeah. Just a little lightheaded. I'm just running out of mojo is all. I'll be fine."

An eager but tiny girl wearing a beret came up to Buffy and gave her a salute.

Eager slayer – "Sir, defenses are up. They won't know what hit them."

Buffy, wincing – "That's great but stop saluting. Please."

Eager slayer, taking down her salute – "Yes sir. At your ready, sir."

Buffy – "And stop calling me, sir. I'm not a guy."

Eager Slayer, not so eager – "Yes, uh, ma'am."

Queen Buffy, at Angel giving the eager beaver an odd – "Don't ask, Angel. You don't want to know."

Queen Buffy, to the eager beaver – "You might want to help out on defenses. There's a lot coming."

Eager Beaver, eager yet again – "Yessir!"

O-O-O-O

Outside Angel investigations a swarm of variously shaped creatures swarmed towards the hotel only to be cut down by machinegun fire, mortars, claymore mines and remote controlled flamethrower turrets. Those few that managed to get past all that and not get snagged by the lines of razor wire that had been strewn across the street were efficiently brought down by little girls wielding large weapons.

After that, it seemed that the battle was over. The vampires quickly went about removing the barbwire from the streets and packing up their heavy weapons.

O-O-O-O

Everyone assembled back at Angel investigations, if only to go back home through the mirror gate that had been set up there. Although they had plenty of wounded, they had only lost one girl and one soldier. It was considered a resounding success by many. Human Buffy was surprised to find see the slayer who had been pulled under a truck walk past, giving her two thumbs up and a bright grin.

Bonny, catching up to Queen Buffy outside the hotel – "It looks like you could've used my help."

Queen Buffy – "We did okay. Though, I'm running low. You mind?"

Bonny, backing off – "Uh, no. I'm low too. All the girls are running low after tonight."

Queen Buffy – "Really? Goddamnit! Someone had better have some fricken sex because I'm getting hungry here."

A girl passing by - "You heard the lady, everyone have sex!"

Another girl in the distance – "WHOO!"

Queen Buffy ignoring all that as she walked towards Joke's tac team who were standing next to a van.

Queen Buffy – "Good job, Joke. Your team handled themselves moderately well."

Joke – "They look out for each other."

Queen Buffy – "So, we ready to kill the representative yet?"

Joke nodded – "We've already got the live face eater specimens in stasis. We used the malformed ones from the church."

Queen Buffy opened the back of the van, to where Eve was being held down by Kennedy.

Queen Buffy, to Eve – "Hello Eve. I hear you were raised by Wolfram and Hart from birth. If so, you weren't given a choice in the matter. But we're giving you a choice now. You can die or you can die and be one of our vampire minions. I'll admit, it's not much of a choice. But at least we're giving you it."

Eve mumbled something through her gag and Kennedy took it off for her.

Eve, furious – "You don't know you've done! We're both being used here."

Queen Buffy, frowning – "We are?"

Eve – "You've just started a war with Wolfram and Hart. There's more than one branch. We have one in every major city around the world. Once they hear about this, you'll all die!"

Queen Buffy, smirking – "Umm, no. We won't. When we hit the LA branch, we also hit every other branch out there. That's why we didn't have a lot of backup tonight. Our forces were kinda stretched out."

Eve, more quietly – "Oh."

Queen Buffy – "So, how's about it? Death or undeath?"

Eve – "Uhh."

Queen Buffy – "If it makes you feel better, it's been suggested than our children have souls. You might too."

Eve, groaning – "Okay, undeath."

Queen Buffy – "You can pick your sire too."

Eve – "I can?"

Buddy – "Just don't pick me. Because I'm not sure how I'd explain this to my girlfriend."

Joke – "And me neither. I don't make kiddies."

Several of the slayers grinned and tried to make themselves look nicer than the others while Eve looked them over.

Eve, with a sigh – "I guess I'll take that other guy then."

Fox, with a bright smile – "Me? Wicked."

Buddy – "You do get that she's evil, right? She's a lynchpin in an interdimensional evil empire?"

Fox, laughing as he got in the back of the van – "She's a lynchpin? That's hot."

Kennedy, curiously – "Can I watch?"

Fox, looking Kennedy up and down – "Sure, you can join in too."

Kennedy, frowning – "Uhh."

Fox – "Sorry, that came out wrong."

O-O-O-O

Back in the hotel, someone put on some rock music and the slayers started partying, much to the surprise of the human soldiers who were wiped by the short but intense action.

Two of the slayers were having way too much fun as they took turns punching each other in the face. Other slayers were making out, creating equally eye catching spectacles.

Angel kept searching through the crowds until he saw the rest of his team, including Cordelia, getting hit on by little girls. Once their relative safety was assured, he put a frown on and wondered how he'd deal with this horde of vampires.

Queen Buffy, as if reading his mind – "Now now, Angel. They haven't had any down time for a while. They deserve a party. And I'm sure that ten million dollars settlement will help cover any repairs."

Angel's shoulders slumped and he walked off to his bedroom with Queen Buffy in tow.

Queen Buffy, still talking – "It's just a distraction. We need it. Without things like this to remember, we'll only be able to think about the huge loss of life. And that's no fun."

Angel – "Okay, okay. I don't need anymore convincing."

Angel walked through the door to his bedroom and was surprised when Buffy forced her way in too, locking the door behind her.

Angel, upon discovering plenty more slayers in his room – "What is this?"

Queen Buffy gently but firmly pushed him backwards, so that he'd walk down the stairs and couldn't help but smile.

Queen Buffy – "We've got a little surprise for you."

Angel, surprised to see the human version of Willow there – "Willow?"

Willow, red with embarrassment – "Hi. I, uh, didn't know they had this planned."

Angel – "What's going on?"

Queen Buffy – "I'm afraid I wasn't entirely open with you, Angel. See, I'm not a vampire. I'm actually a succubus. The same goes for all other slayers in the room. We put a whole new twist on the phrase sexual predator."

VampWillow – "I am a vampire, if it makes you feel better."

Angel, cautiously – "Okay but I don't see what this has to do with me."

Queen Buffy – "It's a rather long story but I'll explain by saying that in my world, I own the largest collection of ensoulment spells. There's more of them than you'd think. There's more than one way to skin a cat and all that."

Angel – "And?"

Queen Buffy – "And we'd like to give you your soul, just without that niggly part where you can lose it if you have sex."

VampWillow, laughing – "There's a funny problem with this though."

Queen Buffy, smiling – "That's right. There is. Technically, succubae can do normal human magic, like the ensoulment spells we have. But to do those spells, we usually have to have sex. It makes some forms of magic problematic."

Bonny – "Like it's difficult to aim a fireball while having sex."

Another succubus – "It's a mood killer too."

Queen Buffy – "There's a good example right there. So, anyway, we're going to cast our ensoulment spell on you and then the perfect happiness clause won't be a problem anymore. Won't that be great? Oh, and I promised Willow she could join in. Hope that won't be a problem."

VampWillow, pulling out a pair of handcuffs – "We really should tie him down, just in case it doesn't work."

Queen Buffy, finding that cute – "That's my girl."

O-O-O-O

A nearby hospital, psych ward.

An East European slayer with a bouncy hair smiled warmly and held out her hand. Tentatively, a girl with ratty hair obscuring her face reached forward and put her hand in the slayers.

Smiling slayer – "See, that wasn't so hard. Now we can go somewhere they won't give you any more needles and we won't put you in a straightjacket. Would you like that?"

Dana, a violently insane potential slayer nodded, her eyes fixed on the slayer's.

Smiling slayer, leading Dana out of her cell – "Great. Then lets getting going. My, aren't you a pretty thing once we get you into the light. Yes, you're going to love what we have planned for you. Wide open fields of flowers and paddocks with cows in and there's going to be other girls just like you."

Dana broke eye contact and looked around the room to see several hospital staff put in a hypnotic state by other girls just like her.

Smiling slayer – "You don't have to worry about these people anymore. We're leaving and we're not coming back."

Dana looked conflicted at that but didn't struggle as she was gently led out of the psych ward.

Dawn, to a chubby, forty something female nurse – "We had a torrid love affair in the laundry. That's why you should keep this visit secret."

Nurse – "Really?"

Dawn, trying not to laugh – "Oh yeah, it was totally hot."

Nurse – "Wow. I never thought I'd do something like that."

Dawn – "It's always the ones you least suspect. So it'll be our little secret, okay?"

Nurse – "Okay."

Dawn, pleased with her handiwork – "Okay."

One of the other hypnotist girls – "You coming, Dawn?"

Dawn, breaking eye contact with the nurse – "Sure. Let's get to that party!"

The nurse, as Dawn walked away – "Call me!"

O-O-O-O

Fox walked into the foyer and held the dead corpse of Eve aloft. The vampires in the room cheered him on. Kennedy snuck in after him, with frazzled hair.

Outtaverse's Faith, walking up to Kennedy – "So how was it, seeing someone get turned?"

Kennedy, looking thoughtful – "Different to how I thought it'd be."

Faith – "And how was guy-me?"

Kennedy, smirking – "Better than you."

Faith, smirking back – "Now I gotta prove you wrong. I got us hooked up with this swish room with a double bed. It's big enough to bring extras. So how's about it?"

Kennedy, frowning a bit – "Honestly, I'm not feeling sexy anymore. You can keep the bed for yourself."

Faith – "Your loss."

Kennedy, walking away – "Don't I know it."

Faith let out a small sigh then scanned the room for potential conquests. There were more than a few. There were the obvious lesbians making out on the sofa, there were Fox and Buddy and then there was….

Faith's mouth slowly curved into a wicked grin as she spotted exactly who she wanted for the night.

She waded through the crowd to Future Buffy, who was currently having a conversation with Heidi over some fruit punch that someone had made. Once Faith reached them, she grabbed them both by the hair roughly. She kissed Buffy then Heidi too. Both of them weren't expecting that and Buffy spilt her punch on the floor.

Faith – "Tonight, I'm gonna rock your world."

Future Buffy, more than a little stunned – "Uh, okay."

Faith kissed Buffy some more, this time with much more tongue.

Fox, seeing this – "Dayum!"

Buddy, pouting a little – "You know, you really do get better looking with age."

Fox – "Hell yeah I do. That's awesome."

O-O-O-O

Kennedy wandered into a small random room and slumped down upon a naked mattress. This brought a cloud of dust up from the mattress which made Kennedy groan a little.

Around the hotel, there were cries of inappropriate sexual ecstasy coming from slayers that just looked way too young for that sort of thing. She could even hear them through the thick walls this hotel had. She doubted she could get to sleep with all that going on.

Then she heard different sounds which made her frown as she tried to figure out what it was. To her, it sounded like a wooden boat, creaking with the waves. But there weren't any waves. Then she noticed the paint in the room peeling off the walls and a vomit inducing mix of smells that made her want to leave the room as quickly as possible.

She tried opening the door but it wouldn't open. In fact, the handle wouldn't even turn despite her slayer strength. Before her eyes, chains slid around the door, locking it even more. More than a little panicked, she turned to the windows and threw open some of the curtains. Instead of a view of LA, she was faced with bricked up windows.

She spun around and froze when she saw none other than Mister Shadow, who had just teleported in behind her.

She wasn't sure if she should scream but her slayer radar was jumping up and down inside her, hungry for a kill. She almost felt like taking him by herself.

Mister Shadow, with his unnaturally low grumbling voice – "Hello Kennedy."

Kennedy – "If this is where you ask me to represent you, you can go jump."

Mister Shadow – "I'm not here for that. You can't represent me anyway."

Kennedy – "So…."

Mister Shadow – "I'm here because I want something slain and you're the slayer."

Kennedy – "A slayer."

Mister Shadow, moving closer to her – "No. The slayer. You'll find this out soon enough."

Kennedy wasn't sure why she wasn't moving, why she didn't fight and why she didn't even try to stop Mister Shadow from placing his hands on her waist.

Kennedy, as her slayer radar went nuts – "What are you doing here?"

Mister Shadow – "I'm here for you."

Kennedy – "That's obvious. Why?"

Mister Shadow – "You need to understand who I am. I call myself Mister Shadow but I really have no name. I'm not a person. I'm merely a convergence of mystical energies which has been given form due to a regrettable situation. Once the situation has been rectified, this form will dissolve. That is where you come in. I need you to kill the queen of the Succubae."

Kennedy – "Why? So you don't have to deal with her as you kill entire worlds? I don't think so."

Mister Shadow – "No. I don't care about worlds. I only care about killing the fake slayers. They're not real. Not like you."

Kennedy – "They fight like slayers."

Mister Shadow – "They're unnatural. You know this. You can feel it, just as I feel it. They don't deserve to exist."

Kennedy – "What makes you think I'll listen to you?"

Mister Shadow – "Because I'm the one who chose you."

Kennedy, frowning – "Chose me?"

Mister Shadow – "I'm what you feel within your womb. I'm the one who picks the most succulent, the most delicious girls to be the slayer. I chose you, Kennedy. Don't you feel me?"

Kennedy felt her slayer radar squirming inside her and felt intoxicating power pressing against her. She felt the soft petals of her soul unfurl, opening up like a flower to meet the sun, only to be filled with a rich, intoxicating darkness.

Mister Shadow – "I've always been inside you, waiting, watching, feeling everything you feel. Because of this, I know you have the strength I need. You must bring back the natural order. You've got to kill the whore calling herself Buffy."

Mister Shadow placed a dirt covered hand over her face and slid his thumb gently in her mouth.

Kennedy tilted her head back as her eyes turned into shiny gold.

O-O-O-O

Kennedy had lost track of time. Time didn't matter to her anymore. She only had her mission.

As she walked through the hotel foyer, she could feel every vampire, every succubus and everything else. She'd get to them later but for now, she had something special to do.

She followed her instincts which led her to Angel's bedroom door. She put her hand up to the door and the locks on the other side telekinetically slid open quietly. Without touching it, the door opened and she practically floated down the stairs without even a creak and slowly pulled out a large bowie knife as she approached Angel's bed.

She spotted Angel sleeping like a very satisfied baby with his large arms wrapped around two Willows. But where was Buffy?

At that moment, Queen Buffy come of the bathroom, wearing a towel around her chest and her hair wrapped up in another towel. She was surprised to find Kennedy standing there. Buffy lowered her gaze to the bowie knife then back up to Kennedy's golden eyes and frowned.

Queen Buffy – "What's going on?"

Kennedy, speaking plainly – "I'm here to kill you."

Queen Buffy – "Oh. Then… want to something cool?"

Buffy clicked her fingers, exploded into a smoke cloud and reappeared fully clothed with salon style hair and a large hammer.

Queen Buffy – "You think those shiny eyes impress me? I've seen them before."

O-O-O-O

Upstairs, in Angel's office, the human version of Buffy swallowed a painkiller and washed it down with a glass of water. The door was closed to keep out the loud music and partying inside the foyer.

Human Buffy – "I swear. These migraines of mine are getting worse. Thanks for the painkiller, Cordy."

Cordelia – "Don't mention it. I haven't taken them for a while. I haven't been getting many visions recently. It's been bad for business."

Human Buffy – "Neither. It's supposed to be because of the quarantine."

Cordelia – "Quarantine?"

Human Buffy – "Dimensional quarantine. You didn't hear about that? A lot of the powers than be have disconnected from our dimension. Seems to include the guys who hand out visions. It's because of the eaters."

Cordelia – "That explains a few things. So what's with all these slayer vampires?"

Buffy shrugged – "In their world, when a slayer dies, they turn them into a vampire."

Cordelia, laughing – "No, not that. I mean, are all of them lesbians?"

Buffy, frowning – "It does seem like most of them are, yes."

Cordelia, smiling meanly – "One of them told me it was a slayer thing."

Buffy scandalized – "I am not gay."

Cordelia – "S'not what I heard."

Buffy, her mouth falling open – "They told you about that?"

Cordelia, laughing – "About what?"

Buffy – "Umm, nothing. You know Harmony is doing the lesbian thing now too."

Cordelia, snorting derisively – "She is not. You're pulling my leg."

Buffy – "No, really. She's with Tara now."

Cordelia, giving Buffy an odd look – "Seriously? Wow. At least it's not as weird as Giles?"

Buffy – "That's true. Talking about you and gay, apparently vamp you and vamp Faith were going at it."

Cordelia, considering this – "Faith? Really?"

Buffy laughed and then squinted at Cordelia.

Buffy, almost accusingly – "You don't seem too shocked about that."

Cordelia, not really showing any particular emotion – "Uh, well, I'm still processing it. I… how would that even happen? Is vamp me really different?"

Buffy – "Weirdly, no. You dumped Faith when the rest of the Cordettes got vamped."

Cordelia raised her eyebrows – "The Cordettes got vamped?"

Buffy – "Yup. Also, not much difference in them either. They might even be nicer, now that I think of it."

Cordelia – "Weird. But it's obviously a vamp thing. I wouldn't go near Faith otherwise. Though, umm, seriously, I did used to have a crush on you."

Buffy, laughing with surprise – "Really?"

Cordelia – "It wasn't a big thing and I definitely wasn't going to do anything about it. It was curiosity more than anything. You're so strong and yet so small. Also, you were pretty cool once I got to know you."

Buffy, trying not to laugh too hard – "I never would've guessed. Thanks. And just between you and me, I was always envious of your looks."

Cordelia – "Really?"

Buffy, nodding – "Yeah. Really. Everything you've got is better than everything I've got. You've got better legs and you're taller and…"

Cordelia, grinning – "Boobs. Yes, my boobs are great."

Buffy – "And I've always admired your smile."

Cordelia – "Thanks, that's sweet. And you, you're… it's hard to put into words."

Buffy, chuckling – "Thanks."

Cordelia, earnestly – "No really, you have, umm, a thing about you. You're clearly beautiful but you've also got this thing about you that I can't quite put my finger on. You've in great shape too."

Buffy, nodding in a so-so way – "I do keep myself busy. You're not looking too shabby either. I guess we're both on the same evil fighting regime."

This got a laugh out of Cordelia that stopped abruptly when they heard a scream from the foyer and the music turned off.

O-O-O-O

Queen Buffy brutally swung her hammer against Kennedy's head and knocked her to the ground. Stunned, Kennedy looked up at Buffy and tried to get back to her feet. Before she could, Buffy kicked her in the head, bringing up a spray of blood from Kennedy's mouth.

Kennedy's eyes had turned back to their natural brown and she wasn't handling this fight well at all.

Queen Buffy, holding Kennedy by the hair – "I guess you weren't expecting me to be this powerful. I can't blame you. I don't show off as much as used to."

Queen Buffy pulled Kennedy up onto her knees. Then she wrapped her hands around Kennedy from behind and yanked her neck to the side.

Queen Buffy – "I guess you're finally figuring out that this isn't the Kennedy show and you're not the hero here. Now you're gonna be my newest bitch."

Queen Buffy closed her eyes as she let her large, razor sharp fangs slide out. By now the rest of the room was more than fixated on this fight, they were hypnotized. When Queen Buffy grazed her fangs slowly up the side of Kennedy's neck, both Kennedy and several other people in the room whimpered a little.

Human Buffy, horrified – "STOP! What do you think you're doing?"

That broke the spell and Queen Buffy blinked at her human alternate.

Queen Buffy, now angry at the interruption - "She attacked me. She came into my room with a knife and admitted she wanted to kill me."

Human Buffy – "What? Kennedy, is this true?"

Kennedy didn't reply. Instead she leaned back into Queen Buffy with want.

Queen Buffy, with a small laugh – "I don't think she's going to be answer that properly."

Human Buffy – "What have you done to her?"

Queen Buffy – "Nothing yet but I was going to turn her."

Human Buffy, storming through the crowd – "That is NOT going to happen."

Queen Buffy stood up as the human Buffy tore Kennedy away from her.

Queen Buffy – "That's how we do things. If a slayer tries to kill one of us, we turn them first. It stops the cycle of violence."

Human Buffy – "Did you think that maybe Kennedy doesn't want to be a suck like you? She's gay! She doesn't like guys."

Queen Buffy, flinching back – "Oh, uh, I guess I could get one of my vampires to turn her then."

Human Buffy, angrily – "No one is turning her! I'll handle this."

As Kennedy was pulled away, Queen Buffy grunted with frustration and let her fangs disappear.

Queen Buffy, with a dismissive gesture – "Continue!"

The music started up again and the chatting and dancing quickly started up again too. Much of the chatting was how their Queen was letting her human alternate walk all over her.

On the other side of the room, Human Buffy pulled Kennedy into a relatively quiet corridor and checked her for bruising. There was surprisingly little but Kennedy still looked like crap.

Buffy – "God, Kennedy. What happened?"

Kennedy pushed back at her and pressed her body against Buffy when they hit the other side. As they bounced off a door, Buffy gasped as Kennedy kissed her and practically inhaled the other girl's pierced tongue. Buffy swore, only to have her words muffled by Kennedy's mouth and then swore again as Kennedy ground her hip against somewhere very sensitive on Buffy.

Part of Buffy went off on some strange intellectual tangent, having just realized how one aspect of lesbianism worked. Even that part of her figured that this scene was largely inappropriate and sought about stopping her.

Buffy pushed Kennedy off her then took a deep breath in.

Kennedy, with tears rolling down her face - "Please, I need this. I need you."

Buffy – "You know what? I've got a great idea."

O-O-O-O

Thirty seconds later.

Buffy banged on a door.

Faith, on the other side of the door – "Fuck off!"

Buffy – "It's me, Buffy. Are you having sex in there?"

Faith – "Yes! Can't you come back later? I'm busy."

Buffy – "Is there room for one more?"

There was a rather long pause on the other side. Longer than Buffy would have expected.

Faith – "Hell yeah! Come on in!"

Buffy closed her eyes, opened the door then tossed Kennedy through.

Buffy, closing the door – "There you go. One more. Have fun!"

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter


	70. 20d Mothers of Monsters

Episode 20, chapter D : Mothers of monsters

O-O-O-O

The human version of Buffy awoke on a camping stretcher, in a large room full of vampires sleeping on similar stretchers. She felt a dull throbbing pain in the back of her head as she at up and realized that her headache still hadn't gone away. She was convinced it must have something to do with her alternates being undead but figured she'd have it looked at the next time she visited Atlantis. She'd seen their medical scanners in action and found them impressive. If there was anything physically wrong with her, they'd find out what within a matter of seconds.

As she looked around the room, she noticed that plenty of the vampires were already awake. They were just sleepily snuggling together and Buffy had to admit it was cute.

When she walked out into the foyer, it looked a mess. Two of the windows were broken, polystyrene cups were all over the floor and Buffy walked across a large sticky patch in the floor. But it was relatively quiet now, quiet enough for even more vampires to sleep on the foyer's furniture. Someone was even sleeping on the front desk to the hotel.

Cordelia, Lexx and Lara walked in, carrying a plastic bags filled with food, a stack of pizza boxes, a box of donuts on top and a two crates of coffee from starbucks. Some soldiers were bringing in more kegs and attaching taps to them, making Buffy frown.

Buffy, to the soldiers – "Guys, I think we've partied enough."

One of the soldiers, finding that funny – "It's not booze. It's blood."

Saying the magic word, several of the sleeping vampires snapped awake and turned towards him.

The vampire previously sleeping on the front desk – "Blood?"

Lexx, placing her junk food down – "Oh man, I could totally do with some of that. I'm fricken starving."

Cordelia and Lara pulled out some of the food they brought and started eating it while the soldiers kept lugging in more blood from the loading dock out back.

Cordelia, with her mouth full – "Buffuh, yuh canmf havev thum tooth if you wanf."

Buffy, with a smile – "Donuts for a breakfast? Again?"

As Buffy pulled out a donut, she saw Angel walk out of his bedroom with two Willows wrapped around his sides and wearing an idiot smile on his face. But when he saw the looks on Cordelia and Buffy's face, he snapped back to his brooding, pensive self.

Cordelia and Buffy shared a look between themselves and they came to the unspoken agreement that what they suspected could not have possibly happened.

Angel, to the redheads clinging to him – "Willows, are we going to do this all day?"

One of the Willows, with a titter – "Yup."

Cordelia swallowed what she was eating and stared, along with Buffy, as Angel got in line for some blood. While he did that, a girl behind him latched onto one of his legs, wrapping both her arms and legs around it.

Buffy, not terribly angry – "That's enough. Leave the poor man alone, all of you."

The three girls extracted themselves from Angel, giving him some relief.

Angel, sheepishly – "Thanks."

Buffy, to human Willow – "Vamp Willow is a bad influence on you."

Vamp Willow, grinning – "Of course I am."

Cordelia – "At least she's not as bad as the last Willow vamp we met. They were a total skank."

This got a laugh out of Lexx as she tried to imagine that.

Lexx – "Actually, I think these two might be more skanky. After all, they did just have group sex with Angel. Even I've got better standards than that."

Cordelia snorted some coffee out her nose, causing several others to laugh, although Buffy's laughter was a bit more nervous than the others. She stopped entirely when Angel wasn't denying what Lexx said.

Buffy – "Angel?"

Vamp Willow, hugging Buffy – "Good news, fluffy Buffy. We fixed it so Angel can't lose his soul when he gets a happy. So you can totally take him back now."

Buffy blinked, not sure what to say or do.

Cordelia, on the other hand, looked pissed off.

Cordelia – "You fixed the loophole in his curse and then decided to screw him? Willow! What the hell?!"

Human Willow, cringing – "It wasn't my idea."

Vamp Willow, laughing – "But it was a totally great idea. I'd hardly even considered it before but we really work together."

Lara – "Really?"

Vamp Willow, nodding enthusiastically - "Oh yeah. We mesh real well."

Lara, to Lexx – "Maybe we should get Willard and our Angel hooked up?"

Lexx, considering this – "Maybe we should. They're both being a gloomy guts right now. Could actually be a good thing."

Cordelia – "How come no one's freaking out that Willow just had sex with Angel?"

Buffy – "This sort of thing seems to happen all the time around our undead twins."

Lara – "It's true. You learn to just go with it."

As Lexx bent over backwards and drank straight from one of the kegs, Lara reconsidered what she just said.

Lara – "Okay, some things are still weird for me."

Human Willow – "So what are we doing today?"

Vamp Willow – "I don't know about you but I need to get back to the undercity, make sure they're not burning it without adult supervision. Also, there's some more slayers coming in from overseas. Due to a heap of the slayer higher ups being on the frontline, it somehow falls to me to assign them new jobs. I'm not sure how that happened."

Buffy – "And I'm going with the Faith, Dawn, Xander, Tell composite over to some military base outside of Las Vegas."

Human Willow – "Do, uh, do I have to come?"

Buffy – "You don't have to if you don't want to. I'm not entirely sure why I'm going."

Human Willow – "Oh, good. Because I might go back to bed…. Uh, cos I'm tired and uh –"

Buffy, not impressed – "And Angel, yeah, I get it."

Cordelia – "Fricken gag me with a spoon why don'tcha."

O-O-O-O

A large disused kitchen within Angel's hotel.

The same large group of succubae from Angel's bedroom last night had assembled again. This time it wasn't for a spell but for something of a celebration.

Heidi and the future version of Buffy were there, along with Kennedy. It seemed Queen Buffy still had some business with Kennedy but first she'd deal with two of the newer succubae.

Queen Buffy, to her future self – "I know this might sound strange, coming from me, but congratulations Buffy. As of last night, due to your first feeding, you are now a functional succubus."

Future Buffy looked like she was going to die from embarrassment and the various smiles the others were wearing was not helping at all.

Queen Buffy, to Kennedy – "And thank you, for helping our young one along on her path."

Kennedy, trying not to laugh – "It was my pleasure."

Queen Buffy looked back to a succubus that Future Buffy didn't know and that girl stepped forwards with a wide, somewhat flat white cardboard box tied up with a red bow.

Queen Buffy, as future Buffy was handed the box – "As is our tradition, it is my honor, as your sire, to bestow upon you a humble gift to commemorate your first feeding."

Future Buffy, looking at the box with a red bow tied around it – "Really? A gift? Nice."

Queen Buffy – "It's a full body cat suit, complete with kitty cat ears and made out of the finest Latvian blood larvae."

Future Buffy pouted with disappointment.

Queen Buffy, giving future Buffy a weird look back – "Is the cat ears too much?"

Future Buffy, looking queasy – "Did you say you brought me clothes made out of blood larvae?"

Queen Buffy – "That's right. I don't see what the problem is."

Heidi, to future Buffy – "It's nicer than it sounds. Check it out."

Future Buffy pulled the ribbon off and opened the box a fraction, as if scared of what she'd find inside. What she saw made her confused to no end.

Future Buffy, looking in the box – "Huh?"

The catsuit was made out of a material that looked shiny red and synthetic but felt like more like soft skin.

Future Buffy – "Oh, that's not so bad. I always thought blood larvae would be some sort of horribly oozing bug thing."

Bonny, laughing – "It is! It's made from bugs."

Future Buffy – "Then how come it feels like leather?"

Queen Buffy, grinning widely – "Feel the inside lining."

Future Buffy reached inside the catsuit and what she felt made her pause. It literally felt like her hand was inside of something living with muscles, veins, heartbeat and all. She pulled her hand out, expecting to be covered in goo but it was perfectly dry.

Future Buffy – "What the hell?"

Queen Buffy – "Blood larvae, even when it's dead, distorts the senses to stimulate a … carnal experience. Wearing it will help with your libido too, trust me. But don't wear it all the time or you'll wear it out. It's more of a special occasion thing. And Heidi, in light of you helping my twin, I thought it would be nice of me to give you a gift too. Especially considering that I purposely didn't give you a proper gift for your first feeding."

Queen Buffy handed Heidi a small black felt box which she opened to reveal an elegant matching necklace and earrings set with brilliant diamonds and tear shaped sapphires. Heidi looked like she thought this must be some sort of joke, not believing her sire would give her this.

Queen Buffy – "I'd like this to represent a rite of passage for you too, Heidi. You've changed a lot since I first turned you and I think it's time that we appreciated that. You'll now be welcome in the entire range of succubus owned facilities in the undercity."

Heidi closed the jewelry case and looked like she wanted to bow.

Heidi, tilting her head down – "Thank you."

Queen Buffy walked forward and kissed her on the top of the head then lifted Heidi's head back up.

Queen Buffy – "Don't thank me yet. I'm afraid you won't have much time to try your gifts on. Your team has been reassigned to help retake a world in the Alliance's universe. It will mostly be babysitting. In fact, I hope it's just babysitting. We've lost enough slayers already."

This got a few agreeing murmurs from others in the room

Queen Buffy – "Okay, meeting over. Everyone congratulate them. Kennedy, follow me. We've got to talk."

Queen Buffy walked out the back of the room, while the other succubae started giving Future Buffy and Heidi pats on the back and congratulatory hugs. Kennedy followed her, thinking that maybe being a succubus wouldn't be all that bad.

Queen Buffy walked into an abandoned room and closed the door when Kennedy followed her in.

Queen Buffy – "Okay, look. I'm not sorry about my actions last night. That's just who I am. But I understand that you weren't yourself. I've been told about the Mister Shadow situation, about how he screwed with your mind, pumped you up with power and told you to kill me. That's forgivable, water under the bridge. However, my Willow suggested that perhaps you wouldn't feel the same way."

Kennedy, shrugging – "I sort of do. I mean, you were going to turn me and although I'm not ready for that right now, I understand that it's part of your nature. Just don't do again."

Buffy – "Fair enough. Well then, I'd like to propose something. I'm going to allow you to use your simulacrum device on me. According to Heidi, it seems to convert feminine sexuality into something we can feed on. I must say I'm curious."

Kennedy – "You'd let me do you? After last night?"

Queen Buffy – "I like to call it conflict resolution."

Kennedy, not so enthusiastically – "Umm, I'm not really in the mood right now. That girl, Heidi, she took a lot out of me. She's a real performance artist."

Queen Buffy, grinning – "I'm sure you'll bounce back. Tell you what, I'll be hanging around for the next few hours. Apparently I'm in trouble for Wolfram and Hart. Some of the fat cats want to slap me on the wrist with a wet tram ticket. Until that happens I'm stuck here, so you've got until they arrive. Maybe you should go get some breakfast and think about it."

The sounds of a helicopter grew louder as it landed on the roof of the recently constructed helipad on top of the Hyperion hotel.

Queen Buffy, frowning – "Hmm. That might be the fat cats now."

Kennedy – "No, that's Buffy's ride. My Buffy's ride."

Queen Buffy, smirking – "I hope for your sake it is."

Kennedy, turning to leave – "I'm really not that interested. Honestly."

Queen Buffy, knowing better – "You'll be back."

O-O-O-O

VampFaith was shackled tightly down on a very solid metal bed with wheels on the bottom. She was wheeled through several sets of swinging double doors in the undercity's hospital. Because her forehead was strapped down, she didn't have much to do except stare at the ceiling rolling by.

The bed stopped in a room with a very clean ceiling and she could hear some strangely familiar sniggering.

Giana, popping into view – "HI!"

Faith, startled – "ARRH!"

Giana laughed along with another girl in the room. Then Giana fiddled with Faith's metal bed and the foot end tilted down, so Faith could see the room more clearly.

Faith – "That's not funny, you little munchkin. And hi, Willow. Nice uniform. Is that mail order?"

Willow was wearing a shiny plastic and obviously fake white nurse uniform with red trimming and a matching cap. Instead of a red cross, they had a stylized pouting lips emblem. Giana was wearing the smaller version of the same suit and looked as cute as a jarful of kittens.

Willow – "Actually, they were made down here. They're a concept design. We still haven't nailed down what look we want yet."

Faith – "So uh… Hey, is it just me or do we do a lot of tying up around here? Seriously, you can let me go now. I've cooled down."

Giana, as if scolding a small child – "I heard you had a small problem with the killing and feeding and turning?"

Faith – "Sort of yeah. I'm not sure what happened but I'm – "

Giana, interrupting Faith as if it was nothing – "Oh, don't worry about it. And you only slightly broke that slayer's arm when she tried to stop you. This happens all the time with new slayers. It's nothing really."

Willow gave Giana a weird look behind her back while Giana kept on smiling and she picked up what looked like a Polaroid camera.

Giana, all sweetness and sunshine – "Willow, could you get the lights?"

Willow complied and turned off the lights.

Giana, in the dark – "Strike a pose."

Giana took a photo of Faith with a flash in the dark and the camera made a strange mechanical sound as the flash recharged.

Giana – "Lights on, please."

Willow turned the lights back on and Giana put the camera back down. Then Giana picked up the clipboard at the base of Faith's metal bed and took the photo that slid out of the Polaroid camera.

Giana, fanning the photo to help it dry and reading from the clipboard – "Okay, let us see what we've got. Greatly increased hunger, queasiness, mindless homicidal episodes. Sounds like a common vampiric infection to me."

Faith, frowning – "Vampiric infection?! What the heck does that mean?"

Giana – "It's a common condition in vampires. When a human is turned into a vampire, sometimes things living inside them get turned too. Tapeworms, yeast infections, botflies, malaria. You know, parasites. Fortunately, it's easy to fix. I mean, it's not like you won't just grow back anything we hack out of you."

Willow – "Why don't normal evil everyday vampires get this sort of condition?"

Giana – "Oh, they do. But it's not like you'd notice, is it?"

Faith gulped but tried not to show that she was starting to freak out.

Faith – "So what's with the photo? More blackmail material?"

Willow – "No, it's an aura camera. Photographs auras."

Giana, squinting at the photo – "It gives pretty blurry results but it can be useful for an initial diagnosis."

Willow, looking at the photo over Giana's shoulder – "That's what a vampiric infection looks like?"

Giana, shrugging – "Not normally. But it's close enough. Looks like its hacking time."

Willow, more cautiously – "We should do a more in depth scan, just to make sure."

Giana, barely humoring Willow – "If you must. It's not like she needs those organs anymore."

Willow wheeled a tall device closer to Faith. To Faith, it looked more like a row of floodlights than anything. When Willlow turned it on, soft pink beams of light flowed from it, scanning Faith. On the other side of the machine, a holographic representation of Faith's skeletal structure appeared.

Faith – "Where the hell did you get that?"

Willow, more interested in the holographic display – "We've been appropriating some technology from that futuristic dimension. I don't think they'll mind."

Willow fiddled with the controls and different sections of Faith's physiology appeared and disappeared as she tried to pinpoint Faith's infection.

Giana, seeing something – "Whoa, wait. Go back."

Willow turned the cycle backwards until she saw what Giana saw too.

Willow – "Oh… my… god. Is that what I think it is?"

Giana, unable to stop staring at the hologram – "I've heard of this sort of thing before but I've never seen it in person."

Faith, who couldn't see properly because the machine was in the way – "What? What is it? Is it bad?

Giana, impressed – "It's one hell of an infection."

Willow – "Faith, you're pregnant."

Faith – "What? How?!"

Giana, finding this funny – "Well, when a woman and a man are in love sometimes they both have a special hug together where the man's –"

Faith – "Shut up! I know about the birds and bees. But I'm a vampire! Vampires don't get pregnant…. Right?"

Giana – "You must've been pregnant when you were turned. It's the only explanation."

Faith – "I don't think so. I'm not a total idiot. When I was human, I always used protection."

Willow – "Uh huh. So how would you explain this?"

Faith – "I don't know. Are you sure you're reading that right?"

Willow – "I'm looking at a tiny fetus. How can I mess that up?"

Giana, looking cutely irked – "That doesn't make sense. Is that a heartbeat? It shouldn't have one of those. Uh, hold on."

Giana took another look at Faith's clipboard and groaned.

Giana – "Crap!"

Willow – "What?"

Giana – "Let's just say I hope I'm wrong about this but we might have an outbreak on our hands."

Willow – "An outbreak of babies?"

O-O-O-O

Back in the outtaverse.

Buffy, Tell, Twist, Fred and a rather scary looking young black girl wearing way too much kohl walked into a spacious, relatively empty converted air plane hanger that was situated at an undisclosed location within the Mojave desert.

It also smelt of old dust.

Buffy, looking around the poorly lit hanger – "This is a military base?"

A soldier, acting as their guide – "It's owned by the military. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it a base."

Twist, gently elbowing Tell in this ribs – "It's more like a military shed, eh?"

Their guide - "We're keeping the face eater samples here because if they do anything untoward, we'll have no problem covering this facility and the surrounding area in sterilizing napalm."

Too much kohl girl – "Ahh. That would be why everyone else didn't want to come."

Despite kohl girl's words, there were already quite a few slayers and watchers there, keeping watch over the face eater "samples" that were being held in large bubbling vats with mystical looking runes etched along their glass surfaces and on the floor surrounding them. Within the vats, the "samples" still seemed to be alive as they struggled with the extremely heavy metal restraints they were also confined within.

Giles, calling on the other side of room – "Buffy. Over here!"

The newcomers walked over to a large collection of watchers who were chatting Britishly amongst themselves and that was when Buffy realized that there were two versions of Giles there.

Both Giles, in unison – "Good morning Buffy."

Buffy, wincing – "Don't do that."

Both Giles, in unison again – "I'll admit, it can be disturbing at first. But you get used to it."

Buffy, shaking her head more seriously – "No, seriously. Don't do that."

Both Giles gave each other a look and one tilted his head, signifying that the other go first.

Only one Giles – "Oh, alright then. Ruin my fun."

Tell – "Found anything with the eaters?"

Giles – "Quite a bit. None of which makes much sense to us. But it might to at least one of you. I must say, I'm curious as to what languages an elder god would have picked up in their time."

Fred – "About that, I'm sort of possessing an elder god, I'm not really the elder god."

Buffy – "We heard. They're a little voice in your head. Now let's get to the translating."

The other Giles, to a bored looking soldier – "Could you pull up the holographic display again?"

The soldier complied and a large column of holographic letters and symbols appeared over a small donut shaped device on the table. The letters scrolled up and writhed together in convoluted lines that folded over each other.

Buffy – "What are we looking at?"

Giles – "If we did everything right, what we're looking at is the magical equivalent of what Willow would call programming code. It's the instructions the eaters work by. And I say if we did everything right because some of the methods to get this might not be entirely reliable."

Kohl girl – "Huh. That looks a bit like Senzar mixed with… Aramaic?"

Twist – "I think you're right. What sort of lunatic society would give birth to something like that? It must be an artificial language."

Tell, nodding – "I've seen script like this before. Whoever made this did not follow a traditional education into magic."

Twist – "That's putting it lightly. I can't say I admire the structure but whoever did this is brilliant."

Buffy, giving Twist a weird look – "They're brilliant? You're saying the guy running around killing entire planets is brilliant?"

Twist – "Uh, no. I'm just saying that he's got talent."

Tell, pointing up at something – "And way too time on his hands. Like, what's that part? Under the remote evocation?"

Twist – "I have no earthly idea. But I do know to the left of the part you're talking about. That's part of the slayer script. What the hell is that doing there?"

Kohl girl – "What?"

Twist, explaining – "Back when the slayers first came out, some disreputable people did to a slayer what we're doing to the eaters right now. They tried to figure out what made you girls tick. Their findings were written down and got spread around, which is how I came to study them. Whoever made this isn't directly accessing the slayer source but he's doing something with it."

Twist, to the soldier in charge of the holographic display – "Could I get all this printed out?"

Fred – "Illyria says the slayer part of the script is pointless. By how it's laid out, the amount of power they'd get from it wouldn't be enough to power an egg timer."

Twist – "You might be right. This could all be obfuscated script. This could take months to figure out. And this is me talking. I don't harp on about it but I'm a superb translator."

Tell, as if apologizing to Buffy – "He really is."

Twist, to the soldier – "Hold on. Can you freeze it?"

The soldier froze the display and both Twist and Fred seemed to stare at it.

Twist – "What is that?"

Fred – "Illyria says she has no idea either. But it looks like a butterfly to me."

Twist – "That symbol isn't Aramaic or Senzar. Neither are the symbols around it. What the hell is this? Heraldic symbology?"

While the others looked confused, Tell listened to a voice inside his head that was telling him that they knew what this meant.

Suddenly Buffy gasped and clutched her head as pain spiked through it. As she stumbled to the ground, she was caught by Kohl girl who was surprised but acted quickly.

In the background, the mutilated eaters struggled anew and one of the vats broke, spilling what looked like water over the floor. When the water splashed over an electrical power strip on the floor, it shorted and the breakers for the room blew. The overhead lights went out and the holographic display turned off.

More eaters broke free, breaking out of their chains and shambling forwards to attack. Most of the slayers in the room picked up their weapons but some just charged forwards to push the eaters away from the group of watchers in the middle of the room.

The damaged eaters were knocked down easily but kept struggling while Buffy howled in agony.

Twist, from next to Buffy – "Tell! Something's wrong with Buffy."

Tell pushed one of the pitiful eaters over and turned back to Buffy, who was convulsing as she held her own head and grit her teeth. Tell quickly ignored the eaters, seeing that the slayers had the situation in hand, and knelt next to Buffy too.

Tell, holding his hands over Buffy's and looking her in the eyes – "Your body is fighting some sort of energy. I can feel it from here. I can get rid of it but this will hurt. A lot!"

Buffy, with blood leaking out her nose – "Do it! It can't hurt anymore than this!"

Tell nodded and closed his eyes. He let out a breath slowly. Then both his eyes and his mouth snapped open, as did Buffy's. A murky blackness flowed out of Buffy's mouth and into Tell's. This kept on for a few seconds until Buffy's eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted.

By this time, the eaters were once again restrained.

Tell, letting go of Buffy's head – "So that's what Buffy's soul tastes like. Tasty."

Fred, horrified – "WHAT!?"

Tell – "It was a joke…. Sort of. Uh, hold on."

Tell frowned as he worked something out.

Tell stood up, alarmed – "We need to get out of here! Right now! Something bad is coming."

O-O-O-O

Continued in next chapter.


	71. 20e There's something about Buffy

Episode 20, chapter E : There's something about Buffy.

Warning : Goes against everything you think you know.

O-O-O-O

Tell, urgently – "We need to get out of here! Right now! Something bad is coming."

O-O-O-O

Outside of the hanger, huge numbers of eaters warped in as a large double rotor transport helicopter was taking off. Those eaters that were carrying guns aimed at the very large target and opened fire. The pilot canopy was blown open and laser fire took off several blades from the rear rotor and caused a fuel tank to rupture quite explosively. The helicopter listed and the back spun around as the pilots struggled to regain control.

Then jets flew over head and dropped deadly canisters of napalm. The napalm exploded with intense light, bathing the ground in its cleansing fire and smothering the horde of eaters.

The explosion caused the helicopter to tip over, finally causing the aircraft to succumb to its wounds and slide sideways into the ground. The pilot did his best but it hit hard, rolled onto its back and then stopped on its side.

By now, the occupants of the helicopter had stopped screaming and the moaning and groaning started.

Twist, strapped in with several others against the ceiling – "Is everyone okay? Tell, is Buffy okay?"

Tell, on the ground side of the helicopter– "Yeah. I think so. Still got a pulse. That's usually a good sign."

Twist – "Jesus, Tell. How did you know that was going to happen?"

Tell – "Call it a hunch."

Twist, squinting at Tell – "That wasn't a hunch, was it?"

Tell, frowning – "Okay, maybe it wasn't a hunch."

There was a bone chilling, fingernails-on-blackboard sound as the helicopter was cleanly cut in two by unseen forces. The front half slid forwards suddenly, leaving the back half behind. Heat from the nearby napalm wafted in, making the air thin and scalding.

From the napalm inferno, a lone figure walked out, draped in a raggedy but completely fireproof and obscuring pitch black cloak. He walked towards the back half of the helicopter and the slayers all seemed to know that this would be their end.

Tell, on the other hand, unbuckled himself and faced off against Mister Shadow..

Tell – "I know what you are now."

Mister Shadow, bellowing with laughter – "Then I guess I'll have to take care of you."

Mister Shadow held out his diseased hands towards Tell and nothing happened.

Tell, smirking – "I'm sorry. I should have said I know what you are and I'm going to kick your ass!"

Tell held out his hands towards Mister Shadow and a soft, pink glow flowed out of his palms. For some reason, this caused Mister Shadow's form to glow white hot and made him to scream in a surprisingly girlish voice. The air around Mister Shadow distorted and scrunched up and the entity of malevolent intent disappeared.

Tell, with a shiver – "Man, that felt weird!"

Fred, with an unblinking stare – "How did you do that?"

Tell – "I'm afraid that's above your pay grade."

O-O-O-O

Vampverse, undercity hospital.

Cordelia faced off with the South American slayer who was one of Oberon's bodyguards. It seemed the bodyguard wasn't letting Cordelia into one of the observation rooms. A few other slayers were standing guard too but weren't being very confrontational. They were standing back and watching the fireworks between the two girls.

Cordelia – "Get out of my way before I have you deported."

South American slayer, with a modern accent - "You're lucky Buffy has your back, chica, or I'd pull your fangs out with you talking to me like that."

Cordelia, seeing Queen Buffy – "Hey, Buffy. Can you get this midget to let me past?"

Buffy stopped and looked Cordelia up and down as Willow heard the ruckus and looked out to see what was going on.

Buffy, to the South American slayer – "For the record, I have no idea who that person is or what she's doing here. Do with her as you wish."

South American slayer, blinking – "Really?"

Buffy nodded with a bright but smug grin. Cordelia gulped as the bodyguard grinned evilly. Then the bodyguard grabbed her by the neck and dragged her somewhat violently into an empty room.

Willow, as Buffy walked into the observation room – "Uh, Buffy. Are you sure Cordelia's going to be okay?"

Buffy – "Sure. She'll be fine as long as she remembers the safe word."

Willow frowned – "We have a safe word? What is it?"

Buffy – "Got me. I never use it. And nice nurse uniform. You make tacky look good."

Willow, smirking – "Thanks."

Buffy – "So, what's the dealio? Bad case of parasites?"

In the room were quite a few people. There was Faith, who wasn't shackled to anything anymore. There was also Buddy, Fox, Lara, Lexx and Phoenix from the sex-changed verse. There was also Oberon with another bodyguard leaning against a wall in the background.

Giana, also in the room – "More or less. But it's not as bad as you'd think. Many women learn to embrace this parasite. They name it, dress it in little clothes, arrange playdates with other little parasites."

Buffy – "Huh?"

Giana – "Oh. I guess you didn't see that episode of House MD. Buffy, they're pregnant. Well, just Oberon, Lexx and Faith."

Buffy thought about this – "You mean like, she was pregnant when she was turned and she's got a little vampire fetus?"

Giana – "Although that's horrific in itself, no, they're properly pregnant. And I think they're growing. It seems there's something very special about Alexander Harris."

Buffy, to Willow – "Seriously?"

Willow, nodding – "Seriously. We really can't explain the mystery of Xander's child bearing hips."

Queen Buffy – "I've been around a while and I've never heard of anything like this."

Giana – "I've been around a while too, Buffy. I can't explain it either."

Fox, angry at Buddy – "I was told that couldn't happen."

Buddy – "Hey, don't look at me. This shouldn't be able to happen."

Lexx, hurt – "You don't want a baby with me?"

Fox, turning from angry to fearful – "I didn't mean it like that. Of course I want this. It's just unplanned."

Queen Buffy – "What can you tell about these babies? Are they normal?"

Giana – "From what we can tell from the scanners, they look it. It's hard to tell without cutting them open and taking a look."

Lexx, holding her slightly bulging stomach – "And that is not going to happen!"

Giana – "Prude."

Buffy – "How long has this been going on?"

Giana – "I'm not sure. From what they've told us, it seems they're growing a lot faster than normal. Faith's spawn is still in the first trimester But Lexx and Oberon's are already into the second."

Buffy – "How would they not notice that they're pregnant before now?"

Lexx – "Well, they do feed us better here than back home. I thought I was just getting fat."

Fox – "I think it's sexy."

Lexx, smirking with appreciation – "You think everything I do is sexy."

Fox, suavely – "Of course I do. You're my hotness, baby and all."

Lexx – "About this baby thing, I'm not sure I'm ready for one. I don't know if I can take care of one properly. I can hardly take care of myself properly."

Lara – "We'll all help out."

Phoenix – "Yeah. You're one of us."

Fox – "And of course I'll help. I put you in this mess. I'll even take you on a date."

Lexx – "Really?"

Fox – "Yeah. Wherever you want."

Lexx – "You've said that before."

Fox – "But I really mean it this time. I'll take you on a proper date. We'll dance and drink fancy wine, okay maybe not wine. But maybe icecream and… okay, I don't really know what people do on dates. But I'll find out and we'll go do that. I promise."

Lexx, looking like she was going to cry – "Really?"

Fox – "For you, anything. If I was going to have a kid with someone, it would be you. I love you, Alexa Harris."

Faith made a gagging sound, causing Phoenix to laugh.

Phoenix – "Fox, you're lucky you're a vampire. Your balls are going to grow back since Lexx just yanked them off."

Faith, to Fox and Lexx - "You two are going to have the fricken dumbest baby in history."

Lexx laughed out loud - "If we are, so you."

Faith - "Nuh uh."

Lexx - "Excuse me but both our babies were made from the same genetic stuff. We're the same people, you nimrod."

Faith - "Don't call me a nimrod, you rimjob."

It was then that Future Xander and Tara arrived together through swinging doors. Faith took the opportunity to pick up a scalpel and throw it at Xander. It embedded blade first into his chest.

Future Xander, holding his arms out to protect against anything else she'd throw – "Faith!? What the hell?"

Faith, as Fox and Phoenix held her back – "Asshole!"

Xander, to Queen Buffy – "What the hell!?"

Faith, pushing Phoenix over – "You got me pregnant!"

Buffy – "Faith! Stop that. It's not his fault."

Xander – "What is going on?"

Buffy – "Xander. We need to know. Since arriving in the undercity, besides Faith, is there anyone else you've slept with?"

Xander – "Not that it's any of your business but no, I haven't. I haven't been in a very sexy mood."

Queen Buffy, skeptically - "Really? You've been down here for about a month and you've only had sex once? I wouldn't have thought that possible."

Xander – "What is this about?"

Willow – "It seems you've made Faith pregnant. But don't worry. The baby seems to be normal, not a vampire abomination."

Tara – "Really? So, Faith is …"

Willow, as Faith started crying – "Totally preggers and really hormonal."

Future Xander looked kind of ill then ran out of the room.

Tara, moving towards the door – "I'll be right back."

Faith, gloomily - "Yeah, go. I'll just wait here, waiting to pump out a unit."

Giana, poking her tongue out – "I think it serves you people right for having sinful sexual intercourse, shame on you."

Buffy – "Not helping, Giana."

O-O-O-O

Tara, chasing after Xander – "Xander! What do you think you're doing?"

Xander, storming off – "Tara. Not now."

Tara – "I don't think running away is the right response to this."

Xander, turning to face Tara – "I… I can't do this."

Tara frowned and her face screwed up as Xander slumped against a wall and caved in.

Tara, talking quietly – "Xander, I've known you for a while. Yes, I get evil you isn't you but you've both got a lot in common. And I've never seen you run from anything."

Xander – "I run from lots of things!"

This stumped Tara. She actually had seen him run from lots of things. But he usually had his reasons.

Tara, sternly – "You need to go back in there. Faith needs you right now."

Xander – "I can't! I just can't."

Tara – "Why not?"

Xander – "I killed her."

Tara – "Huh?"

Xander – "Faith. I killed her. In the future. She was wearing that exact same look on her face when I did it too."

Tara faltered. He'd never mentioned this before. In fact, he'd never told Tara how he knew Faith.

Tara slowly knelt down to look him in the eyes.

Tara – "I didn't know. But that wasn't really you. You've got a soul. He didn't."

Xander – "That's got nothing to do with it."

Tara – "It's got everything to do with it. You wouldn't have killed her otherwise."

Xander – "That's where you're wrong. I would've done exactly the same thing he did."

Tara's brow furrowed with confusion as she tried to make sense of that.

Xander, looking her in the eyes – "It was a mercy killing. Sort of. Everyone died. I'd lost track of Willow. I though she was dead too. It was just me and Faith. She got wounded. It wasn't fatal but it wasn't good either. We were both getting weaker. We hadn't found any food in days. She said she didn't want to get turned by the eaters and… I didn't argue. I just broke her neck. Then I drained her. And that was it."

Tara – "Xander, you were in an impossible situation. You can't blame yourself for what the other you did."

Xander – "I don't. But I can't deal with her like that. It brings up too many bad memories. I can't be what she wants me to be."

Tara – "It's okay. I'll talk to her. I won't tell her what you just told me but I'll make her understand.

Xander, talking to the floor – "How can this happen?"

Tara – "I don't know."

Xander – "I really hope I didn't make Illyria pregnant too. That wouldn't be good. Who knows what she'd give birth to. It'd probably have my eyes and her mile long tentacles."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, Faith's room at the Chase mansion.

Buffy groaned as she tried to lift herself out from under some bedcovers but decided not to when pain throbbed through her head. Faith gently pushed her back down and tucked the sheets back around her.

Faith – "Easy."

Buffy, sluggishly – "What happened? What did Tell do to me?"

Faith, handing Buffy a glass of water – "It's like an enema for your soul. Here, he said you'd have dry mouth after that."

Buffy took the glass and drank it wordlessly, noticing how Faith had a sharp and rather uncivilized looking knife in her hands. Faith looked like she had something important to say but really didn't want to. Instead, she turned her focus down at the knife in her hands.

Faith, at Buffy's curious look at the knife – "I kinda like it. Dawn got it off an alien."

Buffy, putting down the water – "No, she didn't. She's had that for ages, since before we got on Atlantis."

Faith, considering this – "I thought Dawn would've told you about that. It doesn't really matter now. Look, there's something I've got to tell you."

Buffy, putting down the glass – "What is it? Wait, I'm not…"

Buffy quickly placed two fingers against the side of her own neck and checked for a pulse.

Buffy, with a sigh of relief – "Okay, still got a pulse. So I'm not undead. If it's not that, why do you look like someone's died? Wait, did someone die?"

Faith, looking at the ground – "No one we know. Buffy, this might be hard to understand. I don't really know how to say it, so I'll just say it."

Buffy, with concern – "Say what?"

Faith – "You're not a slayer."

Buffy blinked at Faith then turned angry.

Buffy – "When Tell sucked that succubus energy out of me, he sucked my slayer stuff out too?!"

Faith – "No! No, it's not that. Buffy, you've never been a slayer. You were never called."

Buffy gave Faith an odd look and then shook her head.

Buffy – "Pretty sure you're wrong. I've got slayer strength, I stake vampires and get slayer dreams. I'm a slayer."

Faith – "Like I said, this might be hard to understand."

Buffy – "What's to understand? I'm a slayer."

Faith – "Fraid not. I'm a slayer. But you, no. You just sort of … look a lot like one."

Buffy considered this and pondered what Faith's game was.

Buffy – "Let's say I'm not a slayer. Then how can I do everything a slayer can? I don't remember being bitten by any radioactive spiders or being part of a secret government experiment."

Faith – "That's the complicated bit. Me and the rest of the people in my head had this big argument about this earlier. But we've figured it out. Xander told me about that Jonathan guy who got branded with some funky symbol and it made everyone think he was a sex god."

Buffy – "I remember that. So? I'm still not as cool as he was. That spell was insane. I can't believe I'm telling you this but I was seriously considering going through a lesbian phase, just to make myself more attractive to him."

Faith – "Really? Who were you going to have a lesbian phase with?"

Buffy – "That part I wasn't sure of. Every girl I knew was already in a relationship. The only girl that both Jonathan and I knew that was single, was Professor Walsh. Wasn't sure if that would've helped the wild sex vixen image I was going for."

Faith had spaced out a little but shook herself out of it.

Faith – "Right, where was I? The superstar spell. A spell that makes the world revolve around you."

Buffy – "And I obviously don't have one cast on me. I'm not that awesome."

Faith – "You sort of are."

Buffy – "But I screw up all the time. I've died."

Faith – "Then you came back to life and killed the guy who killed you. That just makes you more bad ass. Besides I've been in your body, B. I know about that butterfly tattoo on your ass. I saw it when I swapped bodies with you."

Buffy laughed – "That old thing? I got that when I was like fifteen. It was a dare."

Faith, nodding – "That's right. You got it and suddenly you were the slayer."

Buffy – "Okay, the timing fits but it's just a coincidence. If I'm not a slayer then what happened to the real one?"

Faith – "You were out a while so I did some checking. The slayer before you was reaching the age of 18 when her watcher started giving her those anti-slayer injections. It was in preparation for the cruciamentum. She had an adverse reaction to the first injection. It didn't just temporary remove her powers. It deactivated her altogether and called you. That's never happened before. The girl's still kicking around too."

Buffy, not sure she believed this – "Seriously?"

Faith – "I'm telling you the truth, B. Don't trust me? Wanna talk to Xander?"

Buffy – "No, that's fine. And yes, that's freaky. But I don't get how you'd think that tattoo I got is magical. I'm nowhere near as cool as Jonathan was."

Faith – "It turns out the superstar spell works differently for different people. If you don't like jazz, it won't make you a jazz musician like Jonathan. But if you're a potential slayer, it'll try to make you a proper one."

Buffy – "If I'm not a slayer and this spell of yours was real then where is the monster? With Jonathan, there was a monster that had his brand stuck on its forehead. The monster had to stay within a certain distance of Jonathan too. I've been patrolling Sunnydale for years, so where is it?"

Faith – "Turns out, making a slayer is tricky. The spell did its best and tapped into the slayer source itself. That's all sorts of nasty. It made something a lot worse than a demon with a butterfly on its head. It made Mister Shadow, the face eating ripoff artist from hell. We don't know what sort of control he has over the slayer source. He's probably still trying to figure out how to use it. I thought he was bad enough already but Tell says he could get worse."

Buffy – "Worse?"

Faith – "What he said. Also we know that tattoo of yours is part of the magic that makes the face eaters work."

Buffy – "Are you sure?"

Faith, looking Buffy in the eyes – "Damn sure. We saw it up there with the rest of symbols, plain as day. It might be how they're powered."

Buffy considered this then looked down at the very sharp looking knife in Faith's hands.

Then she gulped.

Buffy – "Do it."

Faith blinked at Buffy with a lack of understanding.

Faith – "Do what?"

Buffy, scared – "Kill me."

Faith's eyes widened. She looked down at the knife in her hands and shook her head as she jumped off the bed.

Faith – "Whoa! Totally wrong idea there."

Faith slid the knife into a concealed holster under her jacket and looked pretty embarrassed.

Faith – "Buffy, killing you won't solve this."

Buffy – "But you said –"

Faith – "Buffy, you've already voided your warranty a few times. If killing you would kill Mister Shadow, it would've been done the first time you died. This sort of spell can only be stopped by killing the demon."

Buffy – "Ohhhh. Right. I knew that."

Faith – "But this explains why you lost your slayer powers when you faced off with him before. The same thing happens with everyone else with this spell when they get too close to their demon. It also explains a lot of other things."

Buffy – "Like what?"

Faith – "Uh, Buffy. You might not know this but everyone loves you."

Buffy, raising an eyebrow – "Oh-kaaaay."

Faith – "No, really. They love you. And they want to have sex with you too. Everyone. Everyone you meet. Which explains why I love you too, cos that's really out of character for me."

Buffy – "Now I know you're kidding."

Faith – "I'm not. Even the First loves you, that's why it had trouble killing you. It's not used to those feelings. But no one wants to be too obvious and get rejected. Except maybe the vampires we've been hanging around recently. They seem pretty resilient to it."

Buffy, realizing the truth – "Oh my god. You're totally right. All of those vampires like me. I think… I caused all of this? But Faith, I didn't even know magic existed back then! I couldn't have known all this would happen!"

Faith, nodding in agreement – "And you were drunk."

Buffy – "Well, yeah, and I was – Wait. How would you know that?"

Faith – "Tell rummaged through your guilty conscience while you were asleep."

Buffy – "This explains a lot. Like how Betsy's got a crush on me."

Faith – "You think that's bad? Joyce is all sorts of messed up over this."

That made Buffy just stare at Faith for a long few seconds before shaking her head in the negative.

Buffy – "Wait, hold on. What about Riley? I'm pretty sure he doesn't love me."

Faith – "No, he does. He's just an idiot."

Buffy frowned – "Great. So I've unleashed the worst monster I've ever faced. Now what?"

Faith, feeling a little guilty – "B, you couldn't have known and you seemed ready to give up your life to stop it too. Can't ask for more than that. Just… Here. Take this."

Faith handed Buffy a heavy metal bracelet. It looked like a giant gaudy wristwatch but without the watch part.

Faith – "The stargate eggheads made it. They call it a subspace dampener."

Buffy – "It's kind of heavy. What's it do?"

Faith – "It should cut your connection to Mister Shadow. That prick has already absorbed a heaping helping of slayer energy but if you wear that, it means he won't get any more from you. Also, it stops dimensional travel within a fifteen meter radius. Face eaters won't be able to teleport in within that range and you won't be able to go through mirror gates without turning it off first."

Buffy – "That's nice of them. They just whipped this up for me, huh?"

Faith, with a small smirk – "They've been working on them for a while. Look, B, this obviously hasn't all sunk in yet. Ummm, if you want a shoulder to cry on, I'm here. Forget the whole I'm-in-love-with-you thing. It don't matter. We'll kill this Mister Shadow then, I dunno, we'll move on."

Buffy – "God, you must hate me."

Faith, finding that funny – "Weirdly, yeah. I do. I love you with all my heart but I still totally hate you. You're such a bitch."

Buffy – "I think I've screwed up your life."

Faith, downplaying it – "With the whole being a better slayer than me and doing everything better than me thing? I'm over that already. I won't lie, being a clumsy slayer sucks. At least the sex is great. And don't beat yourself up over this, like you said, you couldn't know. And whatever you do, don't kill yourself. By the time this is over, we'll need you. You've got a direct line to the big bad."

Buffy – "I do?"

Faith – "Yeah, you do. Why do you think he made Kennedy crazy last night and have her try to kill that other Buffy? Because he knew she was a threat to you. Mister Shadow can't understand why but he won't kill you and he'll do his best to kill anyone who tries. You're probably the only leverage we've got over him."

Buffy – "So now I'm leverage? Great."

Faith – "Think about it this way, B. If it wasn't you, it'd be some other girl in your place."

Buffy – "I guess."

Faith – "Also, good news. You're totally gay."

Buffy groaned – "Look, if this is about my alternate, she keeps using some sort of mojo on me. I don't normally act like that."

Faith looked a little alarmed and also intrigued.

Buffy – "Oh, this isn't about that? Umm. I'm not a lesbian."

Faith – "Before you harp on more about being straight laced and a straight arrow and other straight things, there's something you should know. Those headaches you've been getting recently, they're not normal. You might have noticed you've been getting them around certain hot girls, right?"

Buffy, frowning – "Maybe."

Faith – "Turns out, you're allergic to a very specific type of sexual energy. Which is weird, cos this type of sex mojo is about as harmless as you can get. Sad thing about this is, if you're allergic to it, it screws up your sex life. That's why you're no orgasm girl. It's also why you're still in your lesbian closet."

Buffy, squinted at Faith – "Really?"

Faith – "Really. Sucks make this particular type of sex energy as a byproduct whenever they feed. All that happened back at the airfield was that Queen bitchy pants had her way with Kennedy. Her way of saying sorry for last night. Part of that backwashed over to you and knocked you out with the pain."

Buffy – "Can you tell them not to feed when I'm around then? Because that really hurt."

Faith – "Done and done."

Buffy – "So, wait. You're saying that if this thing with me is fixed, I'd turn totally gay overnight?"

Faith, giving Buffy a sexy leer - "It'll be fun to find out. Oh wait, I probably wouldn't want to go there after the spell is killed. This is confusing. At least there's a silver lining to all this is, the same sex energy that hurts you, it hurts the eaters even more. Tell chucked what he sucked out of you at Mister Shadow. Looked painful."

Buffy – "It was sure painful for me."

Faith – "And umm. One more thing. There was something else that happened when you've been asleep."

Buffy – "Is it bad?"

Faith – "Sorta. Ever heard of the deeper well?"

Buffy – "No."

Faith – "Neither. Turns out there's this really deep hole in the ground where they store a heap of dead elder gods and Mister Shadow sort of killed the small army protecting it and … we don't know what he did with the coffins the elder gods were stuck in but they're not there anymore."

Buffy – "How many elder gods are we talking about?"

Faith – "Somewhere around the tens of thousands."

Buffy – "You're kidding. But they're dead, right?"

Faith – "Death isn't cut and dry with some of them. They can get better."

Faith's watch beeped for her attention and she frowned.

Faith – "Hmm. Looks like there's somewhere else and someone else I've got to be right now. Umm, take a nap. You've had a hard day. And don't leave the circle. If you get bored, rummage through my drawers until you find something fun to play with."

Faith got up and started walking out the room. It was only then that Buffy sat up in the bed and realized that there were lit candles around the room and someone had spray painted mystical cryptographic symbols of concealment on the walls, ceiling and floor. She also realized her ankles were chained to the bed with fur lined shackles.

Faith, closing the door – "You're not going anywhere, B. Hope you enjoy bondage."

With that, Faith left the captive Buffy, who pulled the bedcovers tighter around her.

O-O-O-O

End of Episode

Continued in next chapter.


	72. 21a Best day ever

Episode 21, chapter A : Best day ever

Authors note : To Howard Russell, only the outtaverse Buffy has the superstar tattoo spell cast on her. The others are actual slayers.

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, Chase Mansion, Faith's room.

Buffy was sitting at the foot of Faith's bed, eating a tub of ice cream and watching an infomercial about a dangerous kitchen appliance that was basically a small guillotine.

Her late night TV viewing was interrupted when Faith ran into the room and body slammed her own bed, bouncing Buffy onto her feet.

Faith, giving Buffy a brilliant smile – "Hey B. How was your day?"

Buffy – "Crap. I got so bored that I started cleaning your room. I even sharpened all the weapons under your bed and before you ask, I ignored the magazines under there. Also, Bootylicious Magazine? Really?"

Faith, smirking – "Not a butt girl? Guess you must be into boobies then."

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "So how was your day?"

Faith, rolling onto her back – "Absolutely fricken awesome. Best day ever."

Buffy – "Really?"

Faith – "Totally. B, Tell was right. The less you flex your awesomeness, the more superstar spell stops working and the better the rest of us look. I was sooo fricken incredible today, it's unbelievable. I'm a total champion now. Even Willow had to admit it. Not that she actually said anything but I could see it in her eyes."

Buffy, with obvious scepticism – "You're a champion now?"

Faith, with a naughty grin – "Actually, the correct term is devil."

Buffy, not liking the sound of that – "Devil?"

Faith – "That's what Tell is calling it."

Buffy – "This is something to do with how you and Xander merged with Dawn and Tell, right?"

Faith – "Something like that. Like, you know how I can still use slayer powers even though I'm not technically human anymore?"

Buffy – "Mmhmm."

Faith – "Well, turns out we can use Xander's powers too."

Buffy – "Xander's powers? What do you mean? Xander doesn't have any powers."

Faith didn't reply, instead she just sniggered, causing Buffy to fume a little.

Buffy – "Xander has powers? Since when?"

Faith – "Not gonna tell you. The look on your face is too funny."

Buffy pinched Faith on the ribs, causing the brunette to flinch back and laugh with a little pain.

Faith, half wincing, half smiling – "Oww."

Buffy, making snapping lobster claws with her hands – "Are you gonna tell me or is it pinching time?"

Faith – "Fine. I'll tell you but I should start from the beginning."

O-O-O-O

Twenty four hours earlier.

Outtaverse, Nevada, in a military storage facility near Norad.

There was a dead girl securely shackled to a large bed. Next to the bed, Tell was busy grinding some mush together with a mortar and pestle. He checked the mush for consistency then scraped it into a large flask full of a clean green liquid that turned dirty blue with the mush.

Tell, stirring the flask – "So this woman was murdered, right? A mugging that went wrong?"

A soldier, standing in the corner – "That's right. So what are we doing with a dead body?"

Tell - "Summoning an entity of malevolent intent."

The soldier - "Why?"

Tell, as he poured the foul liquid from the flask into the girl's mouth – "For answers."

The soldier - "And they'd give them to us?"

Tell – "They might."

A slayer standing next to the soldier – "In my experience, whenever you summon an evil entity, they can't help but spill the beans. I think it makes them feel powerful."

Tell – "Oh, this entity I've dealt with before. We've got a history."

Slayer, intrigued – "You dated?"

Tell – "God no. We're … related."

Slayer – "And which entity is this?"

Tell – "I call it Secundus. But you should call it the Second."

Slayer - "Why?"

Tell, frowning at the dead body on the bed – "You know about the first evil? The second is a type of parasite that feeds off the first."

Slayer - "Sounds grim."

Tell - "You have no idea. And are you sure this body was murdered? And it was murdered less than eight hours ago? Because it should have done something by – Oh, here we go."

The corpse coughed as scars streaked across its skin and swelled open in a completely disgusting way. As the body writhed, it breathed in deeply then breathed out a thick blue smoke.

Then it screamed and tried to get out of its restraints.

Secundus, sounding completely insane – "WHO WOULD SUMMON ME!?"

Tell, calmly – "Hello Secundus. Long time no see."

Secundus glared at Tell and rested back in the bed.

Secundus, somewhat calm too – "Tell? It's bad enough what you've done to the First, now you do this to me?"

Tell – "I'm sorry about that but we need some information."

Secundus – "What's new? You're pissing in the dark, Tell. Mister Shadow's been two steps ahead of you all along."

Tell – "So you know about him?"

Secundus, laughing – "Know about him? He was the one who told the First about Xander, told the first what she'd need. Shadow's plan was for her to get Xander when he was still alive. But she dragged her feet and went for it after he had died. Bad move. Real bad. Now we're at the dawn of the new chaos wars."

Tell – "New chaos wars? There can't be any more chaos wars. Lucifer is stuck in hell, the angels aren't rebelling anymore and the elder gods aren't running amuck. And there definitely aren't any bloody paragons."

Secundus, laughing anew – ""You sound so sure but you're wrong on all counts, you always were slower than the average echo, Tell."

Tell – "Whoa, wait. Which part am I wrong on?"

Secundua – "Everything. What did you say? The devil, rebel angels, elder gods and paragons? Yup. All of those are here. Get ready for the end of everything you know."

Tell – "Enough cryptic talk. What is with Xander? What's special about him? How is it that he can get vampires pregnant?"

Secundus – "He's a paragon."

Tell blinked at Secundus then shook his head.

Tell – "That's impossible. The paragon line ended. The archangels made damn sure of that. New ones cannot get called."

Secundus, having fun with this – "Did you every wonder if there was a reason why slayers aren't supposed to have sex with guys? It's because one of them might be a paragon. Looks like all it takes is a few naughty touches and you've got enough a new line of the bastards. But this is good news for you. I'm sure you know what happens when you mix a paragon with an echo."

Tell, realizing what Secundus had revealed to him – "Oh crap."

The slayer in the room – "What are they talking about? What's a Paragon?"

Tell wasn't answering and Secundus just kept laughing and started melting for some reason. They kept melting, bubbling and quickly lost all form as they dribbled off the table.

Tell, his mind racing with possibilities – "The Paragon was what came before the slayer. All males. They were designed to be the leader of the champions. But they were too dangerous."

Slayer – "Why?"

Tell – "Because of what happens when a Paragon meets someone like me."

Slayer, taking a step back – "Why? What happens then?"

Tell starting to smile – "You get a devil."

O-O-O-O

VampVerse, an open eating area.

The vampires in Joke's tac team were sitting down with Twist and Betsy and several watcher. They were in some conversation as Tell ran into the scene and skidded to a stop in front of Betsy and Twist, with a face splitting grin.

Twist – "Tell? Are you okay? You seem to be smiling. I thought you were allergic to that."

Tell – "I'm more than okay. I'm awesome! And might I just say, Betsy. You're looking great today."

Betsy looked up at him oddly, with a little lettuce hanging out the side of her mouth. After a few seconds, she chewed her mouthful more thoughtfully then swallowed. Then turned back to Tell and gave him another odd look.

Twist, to Betsy – "He's acting weird."

Betsy – "You don't say."

Tell – "Betsy, I know we don't get along but there's something I simply have to do. Could you stand up, please?"

Twist tilted his head and then stared wide eyed at Tell.

Twist, standing up with Betsy – "Whoa, wait!"

But it was too late. Tell planted a kiss on Betsy, who looked absolutely shocked. Then she convulsed with pain and seemed to grow. Her legs grew long, her hips flared out and everything seemed to swell.

Betsy pushed Tell away and stared at him in horror.

Betsy – "Tell! What the hell?!"

Twist's mouth fell open and Betsy found everyone staring in her direction.

Betsy, looking down at her body – "What did you do to me!?"

Twist, to Tell – "Why is Betsy suddenly the spitting image of Kim Kardashian?"

Tell, still grinning – "I think you're right. She looks totally like Kim Kardashian. Not bad, if I do say so myself."

Betsy, furious – "My hips are huge!"

Twist – "Actually, that really works for you."

Fox – "Hell yeah it does. How did you do that? And can you do that to my girlfriend?"

Tell – "Sure. But there's other people in line first."

Then Tell kissed Twist, who actually didn't seem too surprised by that or by the fact that he changed form into the spitting image of Justin Timberlake.

Betsy – "I knew it! Justin Timberlake. Justin Timberlake is the devil."

Twist, looking at his hands – "How the hell are you doing that?"

Tell – "I just learnt that I've acquired the powers of a Paragon. Mix a Paragon's powers with ours and you get –"

Twist – "A devil! Tell, this is huge!"

Tell – "Yeah it is!"

Joke, holding up a hand – "Could you change my form too? Perhaps to one that doesn't have scars all over its face?"

Tell jumped at Joke, knocking her off her stool to the floor where he planted one on her.

Tell kissed her for longer than strictly necessary but when he lifted off her, she was smiling for the first time in decades. Then she looked down at her now quite large chest and frowned.

Joke, about her boobs – ""Gah! Where did these come from?"

Catherine – "You mean your boobs?"

Fox – "They look okay from where I'm sitting."

Joke, obviously angry – "I didn't have these a minute ago. Now I'm going to need a belt or something to keep these things from bouncing around."

Tell – "Uh. Sorry? Honestly, they're not that big. I'm sure a sports bra would work fine."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later.

The eating area had become flooded with underage looking girls, eager to get an upgrade into womanhood. Before it got too insane, a line was enforced. The sexually ambiguous and immature would walk in one side of the food court and leave the other end as sexually ambitious and immodest.

Queen Buffy looked down on the food court from a far away balcony where the frolicking girls looked like brightly colored ants. Next to her was Fred, who had been explaining this situation to Buffy for the last few minutes.

Buffy – "So, explain this to me again. Before Slayers, there were the Paragons. What could they do again?"

Fred – "The Paragons had a range of powers, like the slayers do. Unlike the slayers, they had many more powers. A common Paragon power is the ability to heal people, much like the alternate Willow's Goa'uld healing device."

Buffy – "Okay. I'm getting that. So what's this thing about devils?"

Fred – "When Lucifer, or in this case one of Lucifer's twins, works together with a Paragon, they're given godlike powers of creation and manipulation of flesh."

Buffy – "Oh. So, he's just manipulating their flesh?"

Fred – "That's right."

Buffy - "And this is safe?"

Fred - "Moderately."

Buffy – "You're not filling me with confidence here."

Fred – "I'm sorry but Illyria has only heard of one other person with these exact powers and they weren't nice. She doesn't trust them."

Buffy – "It doesn't actually sound that bad."

Fred – "That's what I was thinking. As long as he sticks to just making your slayers woman shaped."

Buffy – "Why? What else can he do?"

Fred – "Umm. He could make Elder gods."

Buffy – "Seriously?"

Fred – "Sure. Most of the Elder gods were created by evil paragons, to act as weapons during the chaos wars. Though, if Mister Shadow managed to get some of his elder gods awake, Tell might be able to make some of his own to counter them."

Buffy – "Okay, that doesn't sound like a great idea."

Fred, grimly – "No. It doesn't."

Buffy – "Could he… you know?"

Fred – "What?"

Buffy – "Could he help with your little problem? With Illyria?"

Fred straightened suddenly and listened to a very insistent voice inside her head.

Fred – "I'll be right back."

Buffy, as Fred ran off – "Take your time!"

Buffy, mumbling to herself – "I need a catnap anyway."

Buffy turned away from the balcony and walked back to her bedroom. It seemed like every day there was something new and exciting demanding her attention down here in the undercity and today had already been quite a full day.

As she walked back to her room, she idly wondered about some subtle breast enlargement but reminded herself that since she was centuries old, she shouldn't have any body issues anymore.

Then she walked into her bedroom and what she saw made her stop and stare.

On the bed was Willow in white lingerie. On top of her was a luxuriously voluptuous blonde wearing a nurse uniform that seemed to accentuate her hourglass figure. The blonde had silky smooth, blemish free skin and legs that went on forever. As Willow and the blonde realized Buffy had entered the room, both of them froze. Buffy saw the nurse's face and didn't recognize them but realized that she was breathtaking beautiful, with doe like eyes and full, slightly puffy lips.

Buffy managed to stop staring and put on a show of being angry.

Buffy, sounding slightly angry – "Are you going to introduce me to your new friend?"

Willow, instantly guilty – "Buffy, I, uh. This isn't what you think. She surprised me. It's, um, Giana."

Buffy blinked and tilted her head. Then her eyes shot wide open as she realized it was Giana except now she was older looking, scorching hot and for some unknown reason was a blonde. Tell changed her hair color too. Giana smiled nervously, without her usual metal smile. It seemed Tell had grown her teeth back too.

Giana– "I was just having some fun. Nothing serious."

Buffy – "Giana? Wow. You look incredible."

Giana, extracting herself from Willow – "Thanks."

Before Giana could leave, Buffy closed the door and blocked her passage.

Buffy, sniffing at Giana – "You smell different. What's this I'm smelling?"

Giana, becoming a little scared – "I don't know what you mean."

Buffy, grinning meanly – "Your body doesn't just look older, it is older. I'm smelling lust coming off you. You little slut, looking down on the rest of us all this time but once you grow up, you give it up in the first five minutes."

Buffy slowly reached out and placed her hand on the side of Giana's face. As she did that, Giana's eyes tilted back in their sockets and Buffy laughed as she worked a little magic on the ancient vampire.

Buffy – "But that's okay. You can have some fun. You've waited long enough for it."

O-O-O-O

In a room that Betsy and Twist had taken over.

Betsy, in a state of sexy half undress – "Read my lips, Tell. Piss off!"

The Dawn aspect of the Dawn-Faith-Tell-Xander entity stood in front of her and was doing her best to not stare at Betsy's new form.

Dawn, who also looked more mature – "I just need take three minutes of your time, max. After all, we did just help you out."

Betsy grumbled and folded her arms – "Fine, what do you need?"

Dawn – "Well, it's like this. Since Xander's a paragon, it means we can access all sorts of weird magics we couldn't before. But we don't have the power for it. So, we were thinking that we could absorb the powers of a god and that'd definitely help."

Betsy, glaring at Dawn - "You better not be thinking of me."

Dawn – "Of course not. You're only a demigoddess. You're the margarine of gods. You're like Hercules."

Betsy, scandalized - "I told you before. Don't compare me to that schmuck. I don't think he can't even teleport. And if you're not talking about me, who would you be talking about? Everyone else who could be considered a god has left this realm."

Dawn – "Almost all of them. Fortunately, there's a god I prepared earlier. But I'll need your help with the getting there part."

O-O-O-O

Two minutes later, at a secret CIA mental hospital just outside New York City.

There was a red flash as Betsy and Dawn teleported in.

Betsy – "Is this the right one?"

Dawn concentrated a little then nodded.

Dawn – "It is. They're here. They're -"

Dawn spun around and pressed Ben, an orderly at the hospital, against a wall with an elbow on his neck.

Ben, horrified – "You!"

Dawn, grinning – "Yup. Me. Look, I'm sorry about this but I'm going to take Glory from you."

Dawn put her hands on his face and pulled, causing Ben's face to contort in pain. Then he transformed into Glory, who looked similarly horrified.

Glory, with her hands on Dawn's – "You! But you're just the key."

Dawn – "Not anymore. Now I'm a god, all thanks to you."

Dawn pulled some more and violently separated Glorificus from Ben, allowing them to see each other for the first time in a face to face fashion.

Ben – "Oh god."

Glory, panicking – "How did you do that?"

Dawn – "The real question is, how am I doing this"

Dawn dug her fingers deeper into Glory's temples and a bright white light flooded out as she screamed.

Both Ben and Betsy backed off as Glory thrashed about. Before too long, Glory burst into hot flames that quickly consumed her, leaving only soot and a large black burnt spot on the linoleum floor.

Dawn quivered with glee as power flooded through her.

Dawn, with singed clothes – "That was fun! I should do that more often."

Ben, to Betsy – "What's going on?"

Betsy shrugged, not really caring to explain.

Betsy, to Dawn – "You want a ride back now?"

Dawn – "Actually, if you could drop me off in another dimension, there's just one more thing I've got to do. You can even leave me there if you want. I've got a take-me-home potion."

O-O-O-O

Back in the vampverse, Future Willow's rather empty room in the undercity.

FutureWillow was sitting down with her gameface on and was giving the computer in front of her a mean look.

Willow, frustrated – "That's not what I told you to do! Why would you do that?"

There was a knock at the door and Willow growled.

Willow, not looking away from the computer – "Come in!"

The door opened and FutureBuffy walked in with Lara and another girl behind her.

FutureBuffy, seeing Willow with her gameface on – "Is this a bad time?"

Willow – "No. I just can't get this stupid technomancy to do what I want!"

Willow lifted her fist as if to hit the computer but stopped herself, stood up and turned towards Buffy.

Willow, letting her gameface fade away – "I think I need a break from this. So what's up? Haven't seen you for a few days."

FutureBuffy – "I've been busy."

Willow, tittering – "You've been helping with those F bombs the sucks are making, haven't you?"

Buffy, embarrassed – "Yes, I actually have."

Lara, with a bright grin – "So have I."

Willow – "I still can't believe sex magic hurts the eaters. I'm surprised we didn't figure it out earlier. It's almost as unbelievable as you getting used to being a suck."

Buffy – "I'm not entirely comfortable with it yet. But…."

Buffy couldn't help but smile, causing Willow to smile too.

Buffy, with a sigh – "Willow, you have no idea how good the sex is."

Lara – "It's true. And I really liked it before too."

Willow gave Lara an odd look then sniffed in her direction. Then she gave her another odd look.

Buffy – "Umm. I sort of turned her."

Willow, having trouble with that – "You turned her?"

Buffy – "You must've heard that more sucks have been made, to help power the F bombs… you did hear about that, didn't you?"

Willow – "Yeah but I thought they were only doing that to potential slayers… hold on, who's the girl behind you?"

Buffy – "Vi, why don't you stop hiding behind me so she can see you."

Vi, a cute redhead stepped out from behind Buffy and looked a little traumatized.

Willow, disgusted with Buffy – "You … you turned Vi?!!? What is wrong with you?"

Buffy, shouting back – "It wasn't my idea. She volunteered! They brought in a bunch of potentials and all the sucks could pick and choose who they wanted to turn. If I didn't choose her, she was going to go to Violet. Have you ever met that girl? They don't call her the Violator for nothing."

Vi, trying her best to speak up – "I really did volunteer for this."

Willow frowned with concern and folded her arms.

Willow, to Buffy – "I still don't like this. So, come to show off your new kiddies?"

Buffy – "No. Nothing like that. And really, they're owned by the Queen more than me. All of the new sucks have two sires, Queen me and someone else. It involved an amazingly embarrassing ceremony too."

Lara, grinning – "I kinda liked it."

Buffy – "I noticed."

Lara, to Willow – "They let Buddy join in with the turning out ceremony."

Buffy groaned and covered her face as Willow's eyes widened.

Willow, finding this a little funny – "I leave you alone for a few days and look what happens."

Buffy, not finding it so funny – "I didn't come to talk about that. I came to talk about Vi."

Willow, unsure what to say – "She looks a lot like our one."

Buffy – "She's from another dimension. The one in this dimension isn't even eighteen yet."

Willow – "Okay, so… is there a problem?"

Buffy – "Kinda. She's having problems with boys."

Willow, raising an eyebrow – "And so you came to me? You haven't thought this through, have you?"

Buffy – "Actually, I did. I heard you've been spending time in some of the more disreputable corners of the undercity."

Willow, her turn to be embarrassed – "I seem to be popular down here. Umm, was there a question in that?"

Buffy, explaining her situation – "While Lara is pretty self sufficient thanks to her slayer boyfriend, Vi is having some trouble with sex."

Vi, cutely pathetic – "It's not that I don't want to. I really do. I just… can't."

Buffy, at Willow's concerned look – "It's nothing physical. Men just freak her out."

Willow – "Freak her out?"

Vi looked like she wanted to explain but bowed her head and Buffy explained for her.

Buffy – "We think it's the hunger. If you get the anxiety of her first time and stack on the very unsettling uncontrollable lust she'd be getting as a suck then… you've got a lot to overcome."

Lara, giving Vi a hug – "I think she just needs the right guy. Till she does, she can keep feeding off us."

Buffy, to Willow – "You seem to know more about how this undercity works than me. Could you help me find a nice guy for Vi? I'd ask Heidi but she's having enough trouble with her new kids. Now that lot is a real handful. I told her six would be too many but she wouldn't listen to me. So, Will? Think you can help?"

Willow frowned and shook her head.

Willow – "Because of the influx of new sucks, most of the men are already taken. I suppose you could ask one of the watchers."

Vi, cringing – "A watcher? Ewww. They're all old and … old. But I guess if I have to, I'll try."

Lara – "And people say I'm not romantic. Girl, we'll get you a proper guy for your first time and that's that. Even if we have to handcuff you to a bed… or handcuff the guy."

Vi – "People don't actually do that, do they?"

There was a pause as no one really wanted to answer that for various reasons.

Lara – "I've got it! We need to find Vi a nice guy? How about Phoenix?"

Buffy – "Dawn's alternate?"

Lara nodding – "Unlike certain men I know, he's not entirely a pig. And he's in her age bracket."

Willow, thinking about it – "I don't know. Vi and Phoenix? There's too much cute in that to be healthy."

Buffy, squinting at Willow – "Don't tell me you want him?"

Willow – "What? No. No, of course not. I'm not into guys anymore… much."

Buffy, to Lara – "You know she had sex with Dawn, right?"

Lara, laughing – "Really? Because I can't picture the guy versions doing that. Ooh. I got it. Vi and Willard. That's even better."

Willow, looking at Lara oddly – "My alternate?"

Lara – "Yeah. He's been really mopey since Buddy turned him. Also, they'll have so much in common. They're both neurotic redheads for starters."

Buffy, smirking – "I wasn't going to mention that."

Willow – "I'm not sure Vi is my type."

Lara, turning to leave with Vi – "Then we'll check Phoenix out first. Good job, you just cockblocked yourself."

Lara walked Vi out, chatting with her about how cute Phoenix is and Buffy stayed behind.

Willow, curiously – "So what's it like? Having kids?"

Buffy shrugged – "The actual act of making them was… odd. There was a lot of blood involved, which I'm not too big on. But now that I've got them, it's okay. It reminds me of looking after Dawn when she was a kid, except I'm not a kid myself anymore. And… I kind of love them."

Willow considered that last sentence while Buffy frowned.

Buffy – "It's not a normal love. It feels forced. But it's there and they feel it too. Luckily we get along. Though, Lara isn't following proper bite etiquette."

Willow – "Bite etiquette?"

Buffy – "Sometimes when Vi feeds off her, she'll bite back."

Willow smiled at her mental image of that.

Buffy, rolling her eyes – "Lesbians. God save me from them."

O-O-O-O

Supernatural universe.

The Winchester brothers were driving their black 1967 Chevrolet Impala down a deserted country highway with a bored black slayer reading a book in the back seat.

Sam – "We are so lost."

Dean – "We're not lost. I know exactly where I am."

Sam – "Why is it you won't let me install GPS? It'll help with situations like this."

Dean – "Hey, I know what'll work. You could take a demon into a broom closet for some sex then you'd know where we are."

Sam – "I should have never told you about that."

Dean, smirking – "But you did and now I'm not going to let you forget it."

Sam – "There was magic involved."

Dean, skeptically – "Right. Sexy magic."

Sam – "I don't mean to make it sound like I'm an expert but yes, very sexy magic."

Kalisha, the black slayer in the back that could've been a model – "The correct term is sex magic. And you can't hold that incident against Sam. Buffy is the most powerful sex magic practitioner our world has probably ever seen. Unless you count sex gods."

Dean, finding something funny with this – "And we always count sex gods."

Sam, to the slayer – "Dean gets that. He's just being an asshole."

Dean, grinning – "Yes, I am. Except how I didn't need to know it, yeah, I'm okay with what happened. I would almost say it was beautiful if he didn't do it with Ruby the ice queen. I get shivers just thinking about her naked."

Sam – "Trust me, Dean, she melted."

Dean – "Really? Ruby? Are we talking about the same girl here?"

Sam – "Oh yeah. In a big way. Surprised me too."

Dean, seemingly accepting this – "Hmm."

Sam – "It was kinda strange but -"

Dean, interrupting Sam – "Do not give me details. You've already done that enough."

A figure lit up from the headlights up the road and Dean reacted fast. Instead of breaking and skidding into the figure, he swerved the car to the side and had the back wheels power slide over the edge of the road, effectively having the car do a rather dramatic 180 turn.

As they rolled backwards, there was no sign of the figure they saw on the road.

Sam – "What was that?"

Kalisha – "I don't know but I don't like this."

There was a loud crack sound and Faith appeared in the backseat with Kalisha.

Faith, with a bright smile – "Sorry about that, boys. Only picked up teleporting a few minutes ago, still having some teething problems."

Dean – "Faith?"

Faith - "The one and only…. Except for the others."

Kalisha – "How did you do that?"

Faith shrugged – "Something about how I absorbed the powers of one of this world's demons. Turns out I've got these funky devil powers now or something. So, how's things?"

There was a pause as the others thought about how to reply.

Sam – "S'okay. You?"

Faith – "Fine. Umm, there is something you could help me with. You two are the experts on supernatural stuff in this world, right?"

Dean – "We're not encyclopedia Britannica but we've been around the track a few times."

Faith – "Cool, cos I've got some questions about these demons of yours. Do you know where they come from?"

Sam – "As far as we know, Hell."

Faith – "So no idea?"

Sam – "No really. They come from Hell."

Faith – "Here's something you should know about Hell. Whenever someone says they're from Hell, they're not. I've met people who have gone to hell dimensions, kicked ass and talked about it later. This one girl I know, she went to Hell a few times with no real problem. Then she went to Heaven and that really screwed her up."

Sam, giving Faith an odd look - "What?"

Faith – "I don't get it either. But I'm right about this. See, I absorbed one of your fancy pants demons, it's a thing I do now, and they had a little power to them but not that much. Also, they're running on slayer energy not hell juice."

Kalisha – "They are? Really?"

Faith, nodding – "No idea what that means."

Kalisha, still a little uncomfortable with Faith's sudden presence – "That's weird. Because this world used to have slayers. It doesn't now and that's sort of why I'm here, to figure out what happened."

Faith – "Oh. So, any clues?"

Kalisha – "Well, the last slayer that I can find was way back in 1834. Actually, there weren't many records of the bodyswapping demons that are plaguing this world back before then either. Might not be a coincidence."

Sam – "You're saying the slayer had something to do with the demons we've got?"

Dean – "That's ridiculous."

Faith – "Not really. The slayers are only guardians for this evil energy source we call the heart of darkness. No slayers means anyone can get their hands on it."

Kalisha – "She's right. The heart of darkness is what gives us our powers but we only get a fraction of its true power."

Faith – "But these demons of yours are tapping into more than just a fraction. They must have the heart of darkness somewhere. A sacrificial altar maybe. I dunno."

Sam – "A sacrificial altar? Do you know how many of those I've seen in the past year?"

Kalisha – "It's true, there's lots of those in this world. They're big on the sacrifice here."

Faith, listening to an internal voice – "It should be kinda obvious. It'll be an important site to these demons since it's where they get their powers from."

Dean – "You mean like Hell?"

Faith, rolling her eyes – "They're not from Hell."

Dean – "Hey, I'm just repeating what I've been told. Normal people sell their souls to the demons, they bring them back to hell and in hell they become demons."

Sam, nodding – "That's how it works, as far as we know."

Kalisha – "Though that was probably gotten from demons so take it with a pinch of salt."

Dean – "Hold on. I got it. You keep saying they don't come from Hell –"

Faith – "Which they don't."

Dean – "Then what's with the Devil's gate?"

Kalisha – "Devil's gate? What's that?"

Sam – "It's a gate to hell. We sort of opened it once… accidentally."

Faith, laughing – "You accidentally opened a gate to Hell?"

Sam – "You had to be there."

Kalisha – "How come you haven't told me about this before?"

Dean – "It never came up before."

Faith – "Okay, so, how do you accidentally open this gate?"

Dean – "With the colt."

Kalisha – "The demon killing colt? Wait, the demon killing colt, which was made around the same time period as the last slayer going missing also happens to open a door to hell?"

Dean – "When you put it like that, it just sounds strange."

Faith – "No. That's not strange at all. It's a clue. So, you two have been to this Devil's gate?"

Dean – "Once or twice. Why?"

Faith, leaning forwards – "Just do something for me. Picture the Devil's gate in your head and hold on to something. This could get bumpy."

The two brothers frowned as Faith reached out and stuck a thumb on each of their foreheads.

Then there was a bright flash and the world outside the car had changed.

Now they were parked inside a cemetery.

Faith – "Neat! It worked."

Dean – "There's no way I'm getting the car out of here without desecrating something."

Faith, getting out of the car – "Forget about it. I'll zap you right out."

The three others got out of the car and walked over to the Devil's door that looked like the entrance to a crypt.

Faith, as she neared – "Oh yeah. That's the slayer source alright. I can feel it screwing with reality from here."

Kalisha – "Yeah, that feels weird."

Faith, to the brothers – "This is definitely what's causing the problems in your reality. If we can fix this, it'll weaken the demons in your world. They probably won't be able to teleport anymore. Swapping bodies might be a problem too."

Dean – "Really?"

Faith – "So says the little voice in my head. But they'd still be evil as stink. That part won't change."

Sam – "Kalisha, do you think you could break this thing down with your sledge hammer?"

Kalisha, insulted – "How many times do I have to tell you. It's not a sledge hammer. It's a war hammer!"

Dean tossed her the keys to the car and she walked off in a huff, back to the car where she pulled her sledge hammer out from the trunk.

Faith, frowning – "Who the heck would build something like this anyway?"

Dean – "Honestly, never thought to ask."

Sam – "In hindsight, we should've. Someone must've built it. It wouldn't just rise out of the ground one day."

Faith, as Kalisha came back with her sledge hammer – "Doesn't matter now. Slayer's on the case."

Kalisha mused over how to hit stone construction for a few seconds then decided to just hit it on the side. She swung hard with heavy sledge hammer. When she struck, a bright blue force field appeared, causing the hammer to fly out of the her hands with bright electric arcs. Fortunately, Kalisha looked more annoyed than hurt.

Kalisha, rubbing her hands together – "Can't feel my hands now. It's got a magic shield magic shield."

Dean – "Knew it wouldn't be that simple."

Faith smirking – "Relax. That's nothing we can't handle."

A feminine voice behind them – "Are you sure about that?"

They turned around to see a large crowd of people who weren't there before. In front of them stood a smoking hot blonde which seemed to be in charge.

Faith – "Sneaky."

Smoking hot blonde – "What do you think you're doing with the devil's door?"

Faith, looking the blonde up and down - "So you're in charge?"

Blonde demon – "The name's Lilith."

Sam and Dean both seemed to recognize that name but didn't seem to let fear get the better of them..

Faith – "Faith."

Lilith – "What are you doing here?"

Faith, smirking – "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Lilith flicked her wrist at Faith and her head did a 180 spin, snapping her neck with loud crunching sound. But Faith didn't drop to the ground. Instead, she simply turned her head back as if nothing had happened.

Faith, still smirking – "That hurt."

Lilith hesitated and flicked her wrist at Faith again but this time to no effect.

Faith – "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Lilith, cringing a little – "What are you? You're not human. You're no angel either."

Faith – "I am so not. Boys, that colt that opens this door. Where is it?"

The brothers hesitated, causing Faith to turn and glare at them.

Faith, speaking with more power to her words – "Where is the colt?"

Dean – "It's in the boot."

In a flash, Faith was behind the Chevrolet Impala, tearing the trunk of the car open. Inside, there were racks of guns. It wasn't immediately obvious which gun was the colt.

Two demons appeared behind her and Faith teleported away, taking the car with her.

None of the demons seemed to know what to do about that, so they turned to the Winchester brothers and the single slayer they had brought along.

Kalisha, with a sinking feeling – "Ahh, crap."

Lilith flicked her wrist and Kalisha's head did a 180, breaking her neck but not dusting her.

Dean, stuttering with anger and fear – "You b-bitch!"

Lilith – "I'm going to ask again. What do you think you're doing with the devil's door?"

Before either of the boys could say anything, a 1967 Chevrolet Impala fell on Lilith from a very great height. The car crunched with the impact with glass exploding out from it. Dean's mouth fell open in despair and dismay at what just happened to his car. Even the demons looked shocked.

While everyone's attention was elsewhere, Faith teleported in, right in front of the Devil's door and shoved the barrel of Colt into the keyhole. Before anyone could object, she turned the gun shaped key and the doors swung open.

Black smoky spirits rushed out of the devil's doorway only to curve around and get sucked into Faith. Faith reached with both hands into hellish gateway and a fiery force field sprung up as her hands passed over the threshold. Her sleeves caught fire and she grit her teeth with pain from the heat. But that didn't stop her reaching deeper into the doorway.

Faith – "Almost got it."

BOOM!

The devil's doorway exploded, launching Faith like a rocket into the wrecked Chevrolet Impala. From the wrecked masonry, a smoky black mushroom cloud rose unnaturally slow, with chains rolling upwards like metal tentacles.

Then the mushroom screamed.

"Look upon me and despair, wretches."

The demons looked upon the spectacle and did despair. Then they started running away, instead of teleporting away.

Then the black mushroom cloud disappeared, the chains fell to the ground and the Winchester boys could only stare at each other, wondering what had just been unleashed. But they didn't seem to be in any danger, so they went about checking on their wounded comrades.

Sam leant over Kalisha and checked out her horribly broken neck while Dean extracted a slightly singed Faith from the windscreen of his car.

Dean, as Faith's wounds healed before his eyes – "What the hell was that!?"

Faith, grinning as she brushed grass out of her hair – "Not sure but good news, I think I just depowered your demons. No more body swapping, teleporting hijinks for them. Though maybe we should run after them?"

Sam, pained – "Kalisha's dead."

Faith, walking over to Kalisha – "Nah. She's a vamp. You can tell when they're dead because they turn to dust. She's just resting. Here, lemme help."

Faith knelt down and gently twisted Kalisha's head the right way around. Kalisha's eyes snapped open and she gasped.

Faith, helping her up – "This paragon healing thing rocks. Should've got it years ago."

Kalisha, holding her neck still with both hands – "That demon broke me neck. That HURT!"

Faith, finding that funny – "Yeah, it can hurt."

Dean – "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

Faith – "As far as the voices in my head are telling me, someone trapped the slayer source with that devil doors of yours. I broke the slayer source. So you should be expecting new slayers any day now."

Sam – "Really?"

Faith – "Yeah, really. Aint I awesome?"

More masonry broke free from the devil's door crypt, as someone inside it pushed it free. This alerted the four hunters and they all watched as a girl broke out of the crypt. She was so blonde that her hair was almost white and she was wearing a very dirty petticoat.

When she saw them, she frowned and tried to figure them out, much like they were doing with her.

The blonde girl, with a slightly southern accent – "Would you men mind giving me a hand? I find myself in a pickle jar."

Sam – "What was she doing in there?"

Faith – "Oh, snap! That's how they trapped the slayer source in there. They did it with an actual slayer. Hey girl, you're a slayer, right?"

Slayer girl – "Yes, I'm the slayer. Might I inquire how would you know about that?"

Faith, walking towards the crypt – "Well, I'm a slayer too. It's a bit of a long story but – Oh daaamn. You're not just a slayer."

Annabelle – "Neither are you. Who are you?"

Faith – "You're an echo too, aren't you? Did you merge with one? Because that happened to a girl I know until I sort of merged with her. Now things are kinda crazy in our head. Okay, now Tell is bugging the hell out of me, asking for your echo's name."

Annabelle – "Joust. You're merged with Tell?"

Faith, prying some masonry free – "Is it me or do all those echoes know each other on a first name basis?"

Annabelle, pulling herself free too – "I wasn't aware there were more echoes alive. Where have you been all this time?"

Faith – "In a different dimension and what are you wearing?"

Annabelle stopped trying to free her ankles and looked Faith up and down. Faith was wearing a white wife beater shirt with her black bra straps easily visible. On her lower half, Faith has some skin tight stretch jeans on, which made Annabelle frown some.

Annabelle – "I could say the same to you. I can see your… form."

Faith looked down at what she was wearing then gave Annabelle a smirk.

Faith – "I like my form, don't you?"

Dean – "Hold on, she's a slayer?"

Kalisha – "The last recorded slayer was called Annabelle. Can't be a coincidence."

Dean – "So Annabelle's a slayer and Faith is a slayer too. Kalisha, how come you can't do awesome mojo too?"

Kalisha gave Dean a blank look, unsure what to say.

Sam - "Yeah? What's with that?"

O-O-O-O

Back in Faith's bedroom.

Buffy – "Faith, you're so full of shit."

Faith – "I might have exaggerated on a few things but it's mostly true. But I haven't even told you the best part yet."

Buffy – "There's more?"

Faith – "Hell yeah there's more. I've told you what happened with Tell, Dawn and me today. If you didn't believe that, you really won't believe what happened with Xander. The soldier boys even taped some of it. Gotta show you."

Buffy, frowning – "You had it taped?"

Faith, smirking – "It's not sexual, if that's what you're wondering about. But I'm sure that can be arranged for your viewing pleasure. Xander can be very open-minded."

O-O-O-O

End of Chapter

Continued in next Chapter


	73. 21b Best night ever part 1

Episode 21, chapter B : Best night ever part 1

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, twelve or so hours earlier.

Spike tossed a smoldering cigarette butt into a nearby hedge and kept on with his nightly patrol through the cemeteries of Sunnydale. It was an exercise in futility since he hadn't seen a single vampire since a swarm of slayers cleansed Sunnydale of its vampire population. They even took out most of more exciting demons. Since that night, pickings had been slim and he badly needed some pickings.

The sad thing was that this wasn't even for him. It was for Kennedy.

Since Dawn and Tell had separated back into their individual personalities, if not individual bodies, neither of them had wanted much to do with Kennedy at all. Tell was rather sexless while Dawn just wasn't into Kennedy. Faith "helped out" sometimes but it looked like Spike had inadvertently become Kennedy's rebound guy.

Much to everyone's surprise, Kennedy really wasn't that gay once she tried a guy. Much to Spike's surprise, she was his type despite not being obviously insane. In fact, Spike figured that she was the sanest slayer alive at the moment, including the vampire versions running around. Faith and Buffy had been acting kind of creepy recently, with Buffy staying locked up in Faith's room without any sort of explanation. There was something they weren't saying and that didn't sit right with him.

But not finding anything to kill had to be even worse. Kennedy jumped at the chance to fight in an interdimensional war. Her run in with Mister Shadow just made her that much more eager. But the slayer vamps were very insistent that she stay in her own dimension to maintain the slayer line. Since there hadn't been any action since Wolfram and Hart fell, she'd been feeling useless.

She really needed something to slay and Spike knew that if he gave that to her, the sex would be amazing.

Spike paused to consider summoning a demon specifically for his pet Slayer to kill when he heard a grave being dug up. There was the possibility of it being a human necromancer, which wouldn't be healthy for him to fight in his chipped, undead state. But curiosity got the better of him and he quietly ran in the direction of the sound.

In the back of his head, a thought nagged at him. When he approached the opened grave, he realized what it was nagging him for.

Whoever was in the hole was digging up Anya.

He didn't fight it as his gameface turned on and he ignored all attempts at stealth. He simply walked over to open grave, stood above it with a foot on either side, reached down and grabbed the grave robber by scruff of his jacket. Then pulled them up fast and threw them spinning up into the air.

Much to his surprise, and possibly theirs, the perpetrator landed on his feet. But Spike's chip didn't go off either.

Spike – "You dug up the wrong bloody grave, you great galloping tosser. Now you're gonna get it."

The grave robber turned around and gave Spike an odd look, to which Spike paused and gave them an odd look back.

Spike – "Xander?!"

Xander – "Spike?!"

Spike – "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"

Xander – "What's it look like? I'm digging up my dead wife's body."

Spike grimaced as he thought about the implications of that.

Spike – "Wouldn't've pegged you for one of those."

Xander – "I'm not… why would I care what you think? Go away."

Spike looked like he wanted to go away but couldn't force himself to.

Spike, shaking his head – "Hold on, Xander. You can't do this. It isn't right."

Xander, with a groan – "I'm not a necrophiliac! I'm going to bring her back to life."

Upon hearing that, Spike went from moralistic to chirpy happy.

Spike, almost eagerly – "Oh, really? What spell are you using?"

Xander – "It's umm.. you wouldn't have heard of it."

Spike – "Got it from one of the dimension hopping harlots?"

Xander – "Sorta."

Spike, leaning against Anya's gravestone – "Does it still work if they've been decapitated? And slightly chewed on? You didn't see it but that demon made a mess of her."

Xander hesitated for a few seconds then gently hopped by into the grave.

Xander, reaching into the dirt – "Yes, it'll still work."

After a few seconds, Xander reached the underside of Anya's slightly exposed coffin and pulled up, exposing it even more. It creaked open and the smell of death wafted out, causing Xander to gag.

Xander, covering his nose and mouth – "I'll never get used to that smell."

Spike, not exactly enjoying it either – "I've smelt demons worse than that. She smells positively peachy considering the circumstances."

Xander ignored Spike and pulled the coffin open a bit more. Then he closed his eyes and reached into the coffin.

Xander, cringing – "Oh god, this is the most disgusting thing I've ever done."

Spike – "What are you doing? Are you copping a feel?"

Xander, groaning – "Spike. Can you shut up? I can't really perform with you rattling on like that."

Spike – "I don't bloody want you to perform, you sick deviant. I've got a good mind to –"

Spike stopped talking when a soft white glow leaked out of the coffin. Then the top half of the coffin was thrown open and Anya in most of her wedding dress did her best to get off of it.

Anya, horrified – "What is that smell!?"

Xander – "Honey, I think that was you."

Spike – "Bloody hell. Anya?"

Anya blinked in the darkness up at Spike.

Anya – "Spike? Hey, where are we?"

Xander – "In your grave. We should probably get out of it. This has to be bad luck."

Anya, as Xander helped lift her out of the hole – "This is my grave?"

Xander, with one of her high heel shoes digging into his face – "Yup."

Anya, on the grass – "It's kinda boring. I always thought I'd have statues. Xander, did you get statues?"

Xander, as he got himself out of the hole – "No, I didn't get statues. Look, my grave is right next to yours."

Anya – "Oh. So it is. I think it should be closer to mine. We were practically married."

Xander – "You can always bring it up with the funeral director."

Anya – "Do you think I could get a refund now that I'm alive?"

This stumped Xander who, for some silly reason, seriously considered the question. Meanwhile, Spike was staring at the couple, not really knowing what to think.

Spike, sniffing at Anya with suspicion – "Anya? Is that really you?"

Anya, brightly – "Mmhmm. It's me."

Spike, still wary – "You don't smell right."

Anya, sniffing herself – "You're right. I really need a shower."

Xander, as he got out of the hole himself – "He means you don't smell human."

Anya – "But I am, right?"

Xander – "Well… mostly."

Anya, folding her arms – "Mostly?"

Xander – "You were missing a few important parts. I had to replace them. Nothing major. Just maybe… your brain."

Anya – "My brain!? You replaced my brain?"

Xander – "It's all working fine, isn't it?"

Anya, frowning – "I guess. But you don't just replace someone's brain without informed consent."

Spike – "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

Xander, dusting himself off – "I can bring people back to life. I'm one of these things called a Paragon."

Anya, explaining even more – "It's like a slayer except male. They can heal people but with the help of an echo, they can bring people back to life."

Spike, to Anya – "And you'd know this how?"

Anya – "Because…. Actually, that's a long story."

Spike – "Hold on, you're telling me that monkey boy is suddenly a champion? Him?"

Xander, shrugging – "I don't see the problem with that."

Spike – "But you're a joke."

Xander, loudly whispering to Anya – "That's not what the girl version of Spike thinks. She totally hit on me."

Anya, blinking with surprise – "Really?"

Xander nodded and Anya giggled.

Anya – "Did you reciprocate?"

Xander, laughing – "Of course not. But she's fun. You'd get along with her. I hear she even has a soul."

Anya – "There's a lot of that going around now."

Xander – "It's the new fad. All the cool vamps have them."

O-O-O-O

Xander didn't get long to enjoy Anya as he had a meeting in the vampverse that was supposedly very urgent but probably wasn't. So after a short but substantial bout of semi premarital sex, he took a mirror gate portal back to the vampverse where he wasn't welcomed as warmly as he thought he would be.

Illyria grabbed the outtaverse version of Xander by the throat and threw him through a thin wall.

Fred, still looking exactly like Illyria – "Illyria! Stop!"

But Illyria didn't listen as she walked through the hole and kicked him in the gut.

Illyria, picking him up by his jacket – "You Paragon's have always been a problem. I should have never trusted you."

Xander, winded – "Can we talk about this? Maybe if you explained to me what is wrong?"

Illyria, with barely restrained anger - "I am soft and supple in ways an old one should never be."

Xander – "Excuse me?"

Fred – "She's angry at you because now she's able to enjoy sex."

Illyria, barking at Fred – "There is no enjoyment in being a man's chattel!"

Xander processed that for a few seconds then nodded slowly.

Xander – "Tell must've accidentally altered a few things when he subdivided you two. I can probably fix it, if you want."

Fred – "I'm fine with this by the way. I don't get what her problem is."

Xander, rolling his eyes – "She's probably just scared of it. I can't blame her."

Illyria, her eyes widening even more – "Scared!? You wretched thing would dare talk to me about fear?"

Xander, gulping with some fear – "Maybe the wrong term. I mean, you could just be unused to whatever exactly this problem is."

Fred – "That's what I told her."

Xander – "It's got to be unsettling, suddenly having sexual urges after millennia of having none."

Illyria, frowning – "I've always had sexual urges. After all, I am a fully functioning lifeform. But this degree of urging is uncalled for. It is … painful."

Fred – "And yet I'm not noticing anything different from when I was human."

Illyria – "Humans live such short lives. They bud then must ruck as soon as they are able or they will die without offspring. But I am immortal and yet right now I am sexually lubricated enough for all three of us. This incessant yearning should not be."

Fred – "Even if the sex is great?"

Illlyria – "I will miss that aspect but it is a necessary sacrifice."

Xander – "So you just want a little more peace and calm stirring within your loins? I can do that."

Xander leant closer to her and kissed her chastely on the cheek for a few long seconds until she sighed with relief and let him go.

Illyria, calmer – "Thank you. That is infinitely more comfortable."

Then she did something Xander wasn't expecting, she leant over and kissed him gently on the nose.

Xander, smiling like an idiot – "Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to go to."

Illyria – "I am well aware of that."

Xander, brushing some plaster off his jacket – "I figured, since that's how you ambushed me."

Fred – "We're actually part of the meeting too."

Xander, stopping to stare – "Both of you? I didn't take Illyria for the volunteering type."

Illyria – "I truly dislike the eaters. I want them gone. And you mortals need all the help you can get."

Fred, with a bright smile – "And I am the volunteering type."

Xander, opening a door to the meeting room – "Nice to know."

Xander and the two Elder gods walked into a room which held many of the undercity's recon teams and much of their support staff. There were several watchers, many slayers, several human soldiers but most of the people in the room were the vampire childes of slayers. They weren't there because of their fighting ability, only their nature as eager volunteers. They were the gophers of this war.

The vampverse's versions of Tara and Future Xander were there, along with both Dawn's who had replaced Faith while she was away on maternal leave. Future Xander had grown his eye back thanks to the Outtaverse's version of Dawn earlier. He was still getting used to stereoscopic vision

There was also Twist, Betsy, the other echo Fetch and the slayer echo composite Annabelle.

Illyria, so all could hear – "We have arrived. Let this meeting start."

As Illyria sat down and as everyone else stopped staring at her for the somewhat strange outburst, the Outtaverse version of Xander stood in the front of the room along with Twist, Fetch and Annabelle.

There was an awkward pause as they all waited for one of the others to start talking.

Xander, to Twist – "So who was going to present this?"

The other three shrugged, to which Xander groaned.

Twist – "You can if you want."

Xander – "Fine."

Xander, addressing the room – "For those who don't know, we four are echoes. The echoes were created in a distant dimension that we think has been erased from existence. Originally, all echoes were clones of this guy I'm told was the actual devil."

Twist and Fetch – "He was."

Xander, ignoring them – "Sometimes because of weird magical accidents, echoes can take the form of other people like Annabelle and me."

Annabelle shrunk a little into the strange wooly dress she was wearing.

Xander – "According to eye witnesses from other dimensions, other echoes exist. We've got reports on one calling himself the Immortal in this dimension and also one calling themselves Madam Gordian in the sex changed dimension. Before you ask, yes, they dress like a girl even though they look like Twist and Fetch."

Twist, to the crowd – "We can totally pull off that look too."

Xander – "The reason I'm bringing this up isn't because I've got a hard on for echoes. It's because echoes are extremely rare. There were only a few thousand made originally. Most of them would be probably be dead by now. Also, when new dimensions are brought into being, like with vengeance demons and so on, new echoes are never created in them. Yet, out of the thirteen dimensions in this quarantine we're stuck in, we've already found evidence of six of them. That can't be a coincidence."

Xander, after taking in a breath – "But this isn't about echoes. This isn't even about slayers. The reason these dimensions have echoes in them is because they were hit with some of the fallout from the chaos wars. When the dimension the echoes came from was destroyed, some of them fell on our worlds. It's not entirely unlikely that other things from that dimension fell here too."

VampTara, holding up a hand – "Do we know what sort of things could have fallen here?"

Xander hemmed and nodded.

Xander – "We've got an idea. The dimension the echoes come from was destroyed when a group of extremely powerful humans called the dreamers faced off with what I'm being told was Lucfier. They didn't kill him but the damaged him. They fractured the heart of darkness, which scattered through existence and now powers the slayers. They also shunted a good deal of his power off of him, which also scattered to other dimensions to eventually reformed into the asshole we all know as the first evil."

Twist – "Lucifer also lost more than just that. Because right after that cataclysm happened on our homeworld, he faced off against none other than the Arch Angel Michael in one of the most historic rumbles of all time. One of the things you might notice when artists depict that fight in paintings and in stained glass is that both of them are using swords. I have it on good authority that it didn't go down like that. It was a fist fight."

Fetch, looking at Twist oddly – "What? Are you serious?"

Twist nodded – "If you know Michael, it makes sense. He wouldn't use a sword on someone unarmed, even if it was Lucifer."

Fetch – "You're saying… Lucifer dropped his sword?!"

Fetch, now laughing – "That's so stupid."

Fetch stopped laughing all of a sudden, as he figured something out.

Xander – "To those in the audience, this Devil that got his ass handed to him, he had a weapon that they called a sword. It's sword shaped but it's more a weapon of mass destruction than something you hit people over the head with."

Fetch – "It's more than that. It's one of the few subverted angelic weapons in existence. Its power is unrivalled by almost everything. Simply holding it turns humans into an angry god."

Twist – "That part is true. Lucifer used to let people hold it for kicks."

Fetch – "But it would turn powerful beings into even more insanely powerful beings too. If someone with true power got a hold of it, it could restart the chaos wars."

Xander – "Someone like Mister Shadow?"

Fetch nodded and Xander sighed.

Xander – "That's pretty much what Tell told me earlier."

Some girl in the back of the room – "What are we supposed to do about it?"

Xander – "Right. Good question. As our eyes and ears in many of the unallied dimensions, we want you to change your focus a little. Forget trying to find allies for the moment. We want all of you to scry for slayers, the slayer source, echoes and to search for any insanely powerful artifacts. Especially anything that sounds like a sword. We think Mister Shadow is looking for something. It might be the sword or it might not be. It doesn't really matter, we don't want him to get it. We also suspect he's using the scourge to search for this object in those worlds without eaters in them. Questions?"

Xander frowned when there weren't any.

Xander – "Really? No questions?"

Kalisha, the black slayer assigned to the supernatural verse – "Can we get to it now?"

Xander – "Uh, sure."

With that, everyone stood up, apparently with somewhere to be and someone to talk to. Xander found himself a little surprised when a black haired vampire version of Annabelle stood up and went straight to the blonde echo version and started talking like they had drunk too much coffee.

The brunette version was wearing simple jeans and a bust enhancing black shirt while the blonde version was wearing a figure hiding woolen thing and didn't seem very comfortable in a room full of vampires. Kalisha joined them and those three walked off to go back to the supernatural verse.

The other recon volunteers followed them, to go back to their individual dimensions of deployment. Xander smiled, finding their enthusiasm uplifting.

Little did he know that he'd never see any of them again for a very long time.

Twist, tapping Xander on the shoulder – "You're cutting it tight today, aren't you?"

Xander, making something up – "There was a problem with my time sharing scheme today. Faith hogged the body too long."

Twist smirked, not buying that.

Twist – "Right. Well, you better get a move on if you want to make that very important appointment of yours."

Xander nodded and grinned. He really did want to make that appointment. It'll be world changing.

O-O-O-O

Atlantis, half an hour later.

Now Xander was kitting himself up in some rugged but plastic black plate armor. It wasn't so much to save his life but to keep him mostly in one mushy piece if he got hit by an explosion. He was pretty confident that he could heal himself at a rate which would make most bullets more an annoyance than a threat.

The other soldiers were wearing similar armor and smearing broad spectrum SPF 50+ sunscreen on any exposed skin then putting on dark tinted glasses.

Xander, asking the nearest soldier – "What's with the sunscreen?"

Soldier, in mid-smear - "You missed the briefing?"

Xander - "Yeah but I got the gist of it. We're going to attack a world in the spaceship guy's universe."

Soldier – "Unkunnon. It's orbiting a rare blue star."

Xander, considering this – "Nice. Blue is my favorite color, after all. So what's with the sunscreen?"

Soldier – "This blue star isn't really blue. It mostly pumps out UV light. If you don't want your retina burnt out, you better wear some shades. Sunscreen will help against skin cancer too."

Xander – "Oh, right…. Why are we going there again?"

Soldier – "Because Unkunnon is one of the most defendable positions in that universe and it's covered in automated industry which the eaters are no doubt using to make new space ships and new weaponry. And it's a diamond planet which has more precious resources than most solar systems have combined."

Xander, giving the soldier a weird look – "Diamond planet?"

Soldier, putting on some black shades – "I'm just relaying what I've been told, sir. Also, the vampires think the representative for that dimension is there."

Xander considered all this and put on the pair of shades that came with his armor.

Then he put on a helmet and looked at himself in a mirror. Something about the armor just didn't look right.

Xander – "I look like a fag."

The soldier Xander was talking to – "Could be worse."

O-O-O-O

In another part of Atlantis, in what looked like a large locker room.

Several slayer tac teams and support teams were being briefed by their leaders on the new armaments and armors being utilized in the fight against the eaters.

Joke, with a continual smile and very prominent boobs – "All of you should have noticed that us undead seem to be extremely susceptible to lasers, perhaps even more so than our human allies."

This got a few indignant mumbles from her team.

Joke – "Because of this, Atlantis has started fabricating an anti-laser membrane for all of us to wear. As you can see, it's a very light material so it shouldn't weigh up down."

Fox, frowning at his lightweight armor – "I am not wearing this."

Joke – "You really should. Because it'll make you almost invulnerable to laser fire. I've seen them test it. It really works."

Fox – "I'm not wearing it because it's silver spandex."

The slayer next to him, stretching her anti-laser suit – "He's right. It's spandex."

A loud speaker – "Attention Atlantis. We are about to travel through the mirror gate. Brace yourself."

Buddy, cringing – "I hate this part."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis slid through the super large reflective mirror gate and came out the other side in another universe, in a part of space far from earth.

There was a dark purple star with a black center and an even darker planet nearby which was had a swarms of spaceships orbiting above it. The spaceships sparkled as tiny purple dots in the strange starlight.

Inside the bridge of Atlantis, Weir, the civilian commander of Atlantis, gulped.

Weir – "That's a lot of ships. Can they see us?"

Soldier at a console – "I don't think so. The stealth shielding is working and they're not reacting to our presence."

Another person at a console – "Line of sight communication says all units are in position and ready to go."

Weir, nodding - "Good. Activate the subspace dampeners."

Everyone waited as nothing much seemed to be happening when the subspace dampeners were activated.

First soldier at a console - "Subspace is stabilized. Teleportation, hyperspace and time manipulation should now be impossible. The entire planet is covered. We've trapped them. They're reacting."

Soldier at the console next to him – "He's right. The enemy ships are breaking off from the planet."

Then their force fields glowed green for a second and an odd clunking sound rumbled through Atlantis.

Weir – "Someone tell me what that was?"

One of the soldiers, looking at his console – "I'm not sure. But our stealth is down. They can see us. They can see all of us."

Outside Altantis, several much smaller allied ships appeared in plain view now that their stealth systems had all been forcibly taken down. They were covering the small dark planet in a large sphere, blanketing it with their subspace dampeners to stop the eaters from teleporting away.

Weir – "Tara. We could do with some help here."

O-O-O-O

The enemy ships powered up their lasers and let loose with rockets and high velocity bullets. The rockets and rounds flew out at different speeds but looked like they were moving in slow motion because of the distances. In stark contrast, the lasers slammed against force fields without warning.

The allied earth ships weren't firing back yet but this was part of the plan.

Similar to the lasers, Atlantis fired giant beams of energy without warning. The beams scythed through the eater controlled ships in an apparently random fashion but had the uncanny ability to avoid hitting the allied ships. The enemy ships blew up at an alarming rate, creating a surprisingly dense cloud of debris that seemed to hamper the beams of energy.

The enemy armada wasn't even half destroyed when Atlantis stopped firing its energy beams and it slowly transformed back into its normal configuration.

O-O-O-O

Tara, leaning against a wall – "I'm sorry. I couldn't do it any longer. There was something stopping me."

McKay, reading from a handheld tablet – "You couldn't do it any longer because the cannons are overheating. Atlantis wasn't made for this sort of attack. That system is just for point defense."

Shepard – "She did a lot of damage. Let's see how many we can take out with the drones now."

O-O-O-O

As Atlantis started emptying its yellow glowing drones into enemy fleet, the smaller ships started firing too. The enemy fleet was fragmented by Tara's attack but there were still hundreds of them.

On the other side of the small alien planet, the Operative looked out a view port as all ships started unloading into each other and frowned. The allied ships had been equipped with powerful force fields but it seemed like the eaters had their own too. The eater's force fields were a lot weaker, often caving in after one or two strikes but there were far more of them than the allies.

Not only that but the enemy ships were getting closer. He could make out some of details of the individual ships now, instead of seeing them as small points of purple light. Soon, the eater controlled ships would try to swarm them and attack from all sides.

Next to him, a rather creepy vampire girl looked out the window and squinted with concentration. Much to the Operative's surprise, the enemy ships seemed to struggle with their controls as they swung around in wide arcs. Then his eyes opened wide as a large collection of the eater ships all seemed to get pulled towards one point in space. As they balled together, they crunched, exploded and broke apart with the sort of violence you only get with head on collisions in space.

Oberon, the creepy vampire next to him – "I think I'm getting better at this."

The Operative - "What just happened?"

The copilot, staring out the window too - "I'm sure this can all be explained with science."

Oberon, as if it was obvious – "Hello! I just happened. What? You think I'm here just to look good? I'm a weapon of ass destruction."

Oberon considered this as she adjusted her dress a little and smoothed her hands over her now obviously pregnant belly.

Oberon – "But I do look good, don't I?"

The Operative figured that perhaps a little flattery couldn't hurt on this occasion.

The Operative – "You look stunning, my dear."

Oberon seemed pleased by this then went back to business of using the powers of her mind to smash things to bits.

Oberon, looking out the window again – "So, what else can I wreck?"

O-O-O-O

Back on Atlantis, things suddenly got very exciting as holes started appearing in their shields. As atmosphere leaked out from the shields, airtight doors slammed down over balconies across the city to trap the air inside.

Shepard - "Something's poking holes in our shields."

McKay - "I know that but what is that? Some sort of back EMF projector?"

Shepard – "Does it matter? Fix it?"

McKay – "How are we supposed to fix it if we don't even know how they're doing that?"

As those two argued, enemy ships flew through the largest hole and face eaters started jumping out their airlocks and propelling themselves towards Atlantis on small, simple looking jetpacks. For some reason, the face eaters glowed bright fluorescent green in the UV light of the sun.

Harmony - "Please tell me we brought spacesuits this time around."

McKay - "We brought spacesuits."

Shepard - "Then let's suit up."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis's emergency railguns and missile defenses turned and started firing at the eaters, making a mess out of their ships but having trouble pinpointing the individual eaters.

As the eaters landed against the hull, Atlantis's artificial gravity kicked in for them, causing several to slide down the side of the towers. Those that managed to hold onto the sides of the towers climbed their way towards the city's defenses.

Then the artificial gravity failed.

Inside Atlantis, some space suit wearing soldiers made confused sounds as they bounced up towards the ceiling.

One soldier - "What the hell? Where did the gravity go?"

The captain of the squad - "Don't know. But we need to get out there. Just remember, always keep one magnetic boot on the ground at all times."

The airlock opened out into space and it became quite apparent to them what was shutting down Atlantis's systems.

Captain – "Atlantis, we've got Mister Shadow out there. Repeat. We have Mister Shadow. He's leading the invasion of Atlantis."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis, Bridge.

Queen Buffy - "We should to activate some of the F bombs."

Weir, alarmed - "That wasn't part of the plan. Those are for the planet."

Queen Buffy – "Losing Atlantis to the eaters isn't part of the plan either."

Weir - "But what will these F bombs do to us?"

Queen Buffy, after some hesitation – "Nothing harmful. We've tested them. You shouldn't even notice anything when they go off."

McKay – "You're sure. Because I heard about what happened with you before with an F-bomb."

Queen Buffy – "Entirely different type of F bomb. This one won't do anything to us, I promise."

O-O-O-O

Outside.

Xander and some other people in spacesuits were doing their best to defend a railgun site without getting them killed. The eaters were flying in overhead and laying down fire as they took cover behind the architectural folds of the tower. With enemies coming at them from all angles, it was impossible to take proper cover.

Across the outside of Atlantis, other squads were in a similar positions, hiding in nooks and crannies and behind balconies while the eaters came down on them in a thick, bee like swarm.

O-O-O-O

Inside Atlantis, in a loading dock.

Future Willow was copy and pasting programming code, trying to cast a makeshift technomancy spell. She ran it and her laptop beeped rudely at her. She balled her fists and almost pummeled the obstinate piece of hardware.

Willow – "Work you stupid thing."

Behind her, some vampire helpers had opened up a large missile warhead to expose a giant pink crystal which formed the core of the F-bombs. These F-bombs were succubus based weaponry, powered by industrial amounts of sex in the undercity. Atlantis thought they had brought enough of them along enough to blanket a small moon like Unkunnon.

One of the vampires, a tall but puppy dog cute girl – "We were told to set one off."

Willow, growling – "I know! I'm trying. It's really not my fault. No one has much experience in weaponizing this sort of magic. Usually the only people who try are perverts."

The other vampire, this one a somewhat suave young girl with nice olive skin – "You say that like you're not a pervert."

Willow had finished editing her program again and ran it. The laptop beeped at her again and this time she brought her hands crashing down onto the laptop, making it break into pieces.

A second later, her mouth fell open and she groaned at her own stupidity. Then the crystal in the warhead started humming.

The suave girl, not so suavely – "Is it supposed to do that?"

Then there was a strange liquid popping sound and a bright pink light exploded out of the crystal, hurting no one in the room.

Willow, surprising – "I guess it is supposed to do that. Does anyone else suddenly feel a little weird?"

Tall vampire girl – "Weird how? Crazy group sex weird?"

Willow, considering this – "No. No more than usual. I've just got goosebumbs."

O-O-O-O

Outside Atlantis.

The eaters had managed to disable several of the heavy defenses set into the towers of Atlantis and taken out several space suit wearing squads. Then a wave of pink energy slowly flew out the base of Atlantis, flowing languidly through space.

When it hit the eaters, they recoiled in pain and fractured with bits breaking off, as if tiny explosives were being set off inside them. When the pinkness reached out more and reached the eaters jetpacking in, they seemed to lose control. Many of them flew forwards uncontrolled and smashed themselves against the towers only to break apart like weak chalk.

As the pinkness spread out further and started hitting the eater controlled spaceships, the spaceships started free wheeling. Those that kept firing, stopped aiming properly.

As the eaters were in the throes of agony, the surviving space suited squads fought with renewed vigor, eager to push back against the overwhelming forces. More spacesuit squads came out of airlocks around Atlantis only to be confronted with what was practically skeet shooting. Now their bullets not only hurt the eaters but broke them apart.

One of the new space suits on the radio – "Hey, you said these guys were tough! Wait, what the hell is – ARGGCK!"

Another space suit on the radio – "That was great but we've still got Mister Shadow. Requesting someone come out and shoot him with a puddle j – AARH! – That bastard just took off my hand! Screw this. Let me back in."

Xander looked around the towers and couldn't see where Mister Shadow was. He walked around the tower, his magnetic boots clanking as he did, until he saw a large red blight creeping along the towers and in the middle of it, a black figure wielding what looked like a white light saber. A small group of survivors were doing their best to not get cut down by the freak, laying down fire for each other and running up the tower.

Xander, pressing a button on his spacesuit – "Mister Shadow's on the one of the innermost towers. It's the one that's turning red around him. We'll need some help to deal with him."

With that relayed, Xander jumped off the tower, collided with an eater in midair and tore them apart as they yanked the jetpack off their back. He strapped it on, grabbed the simple joystick attached to it and pushed the fire button. Compressed gas flew out the nozzles in the back and propelled him forward slowly at first but the momentum grew steadily.

Before he realized it, he was going really quite fast. An eater floated in front of his path and he lifted his legs to meet it. It practically exploded into dust but it still hurt. It also changed his trajectory, aiming him closer to Mister Shadow.

Using this as an opportunity, Xander kept thrusting and started flying towards Mister Shadow at a dizzying speed. By now, he could see that Mister Shadow's sword was around three times longer than a light saber and on fire despite being in space. If Mister Shadow saw him coming now, it'd only take a quick slice and Xander would be taken out of the fight.

Xander, wincing – "Ahh monkey poop."

Inside his head, he could feel Faith, Tell and Dawn watching and hoping that this crazy maneuver would win the day.

Xander screamed at the last second as he thudded heavily into Mister Shadow. Xander lost his gun and stolen jetpack and caused his helmet to fracture and hiss in a disconcerting way but Mister Shadow had lost his sword too. Xander hurt all over with a paralyzing pain that seemed to fade away quickly, thanks to some internal help from Tell.

Now that he could think more clearly, his mind snapped back to the fight and he saw that Mister Shadow was floating free in space and unmoving. Xander himself tried to move but stopped when he realized that he had broken a few too many things. He closed his eyes, focused and healed his own broken bones in a matter of seconds.

By that time, Mister Shadow was back to moving and turned his gaze to Xander.

Mister Shadow, speaking inside Xander's head – "You!? That was you?"

Xander, talking out loud – "That's right, gumbi. It's on."

Xander held out his hands and let Dawn take a small amount of control over him, enough for her to channel some of the fluffy pink energy that they had absorbed from the F-bombs. The energy flowed out freely and they could hear Mister Shadow's laughter echo within their mind. The pink energy seemed to collect into a long black crystal that Mister Shadow was wearing around they presumed was his neck.

Mister Shadow, lifting the now slightly glowing crystal as if to show it off – "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Calling on Faith's slayer skills, Xander's right arm made an awkward looking but lightning fast movement which caused the rest of his body to ripple as he pulled out his sidearm and shot the crystal.

Xander – "I love it when bad guys monologue and show me stuff they really shouldn't be showing me."

Then Xander unloaded the rest of his magazine at Mister Shadow, who put one hand up to create a force field that deflected his bullets with ease. While that was going on, another wave of pink wafted towards them as another F-bomb was set off. By the time Mister Shadow saw it coming, it was already too late. At the last second, he flinched and tried to swerve away but it hit him full on.

Without a doubt he screamed in the silence of space and glowed white hot under his obscuring cloak, Xander unloaded the rest of his gun into him. Then Xander pulled Mister Shadow out of midair, pressed him against a bulk head and started pummeling the evil entity's face in with his right fist.

Xander – "This is for Buffy! You sick freak!"

Still weakened, Mister Shadow lifted his arms to make a protective cage for his face, so Xander just changed targets and started caving their rib cage in. He felt ribs snap under the punishment and he kept on punching, making a mushy mess out of whatever physiology Mister Shadow had. In the space above them, this new pink wave of energy broke the mostly dead eaters apart even more, killing all them that were within its force field.

Then Mister Shadow threw something hot and fiery at Xander's head. It exploded, knocked Xander off Mister Shadow and tore off Xander's helmet. Vacuum assaulted Xander immediately, violently sucking the air straight out of his lungs and threatening to suck his lungs out with it. But for some reason , his lungs weren't pulled out and his head didn't explode. He guessed vacuum wouldn't kill him since he wasn't technically human anymore but he wasn't exactly enjoying this.

Mister Shadow floated off the hull and seemed to regain his scenes after all that just happened to him.

Mister Shadow's voice roared within Xander's mind and everyone else's in Atlantis – "You think that can kill me!? You have no idea what I'm capable of."

Xander stopped fighting against as Tell sapped it away again and looked up to find disfigured zombies like creatures rising out of the red blight that was infecting the towers of Atlantis. Xander could see several space suit wearing soldiers laying down fire into the zombies. The zombies were poked full of holes but ignored the damage with ease. Several zombies had risen out of the red blight around Xander, grabbing at his ankles and pulling him closer. Using Faith's slayer strength, they weren't too much of a problem to shrug off.

Then Xander saw the puddle jumper behind Mister Shadow with its drone launchers popping out its sides and lining him up. Mister Shadow's hood flicked to the side as he sensed the puddle jumper's presence and Xander could feel him summoning some power to destroy it.

Leaping up into the air, Xander kicked hard with one of his magnetic boots and clobbered Mister Shadow in the groin so hard Xander thought he felt bones break in his ass. Not expecting that at all, Mister Shadow spun head over heels straight towards the puddle jumper, giving the pilot a perfect target.

Two drones fired out from the small craft and swung inwards, hitting Mister Shadow dead on. The explosion knocked Xander off his feet, past the top of the towers only to knock his head on the immensely hard force field. As he winced in pain, he squinted downwards and realized that Mister Shadow was gone. There were no remains of dark obscuring cloth or a fountain of meaty bits floating in space and painted on the hull. Mister Shadow was truly vaporized. The red blight and zombies quickly withered away too.

As he floated back down to the city, he realized that he had just killed the big bad.

Faith whispered in his head – "With some help from your friends."

Part of him couldn't believe that it would end so neatly.

O-O-O-O

Continued in Best night ever part 2


	74. 21c Best night ever part 2

Episode 21, chapter C : Best night ever part 2

O-O-O-O

With Mister Shadow gone and two F-bombs detonated, the eater controlled fleet wasn't much of a threat anymore. The artificial gravity had turned back on for Atlantis, which helped everything along too.

Atlantis moved closer to Unkunnon but instead of landing on it they started dropping in giant artificially intelligent flying hunter killer drones that they had gotten from Earth-that-was. Amongst the drones, manned ships dropped in for certain key missions.

One out of place looking firefly class transport plummeted towards the planet. It's cargo bay had Joke's tac team wearing silver spandex, a group of SGC soldiers wearing dull black plastic plate armor and two large AI drones that looked somewhat like small tanks. Malcolm Reynolds frowned as one of the AI's seemed to be giving him what he thought was an odd look.

Buddy – "Not that I'm complaining but how come we keep getting these absurdly important yet suicidal missions? It's not like we're the not the best tac team or anything."

Fox – "Yeah. I'm going to have a kid back home. I'm not looking to die."

Jayne Cobb – "Suicidal? No one said anything about suicide? Mal, what have you got me into?... Again?"

Joke, to Jayne – "You don't know about Unkunnon?"

Kaylee – "It's got more space industry than any other world in the alliance despite its small size. We're going to help take over their industry, aren't we?"

Joke – "That's not why we're here. We're here for the representative. We just killed Mister Shadow. Once we take care of the rep, this war will be over."

Jayne – "I think I understand that. So how does suicide come into it?"

Buddy – "I guess no one told him what the representative is."

Joke, smirking at Buddy – "Its need to know. We don't want to spook the mortals, do we?"

One of the SGC soldiers, rolling his eyes – "We don't actually know what they are. But we've been told they won't go down without a fight and they'll have magic. She's supposed to be some sort of upper level demon, whatever that means."

Joke – "It means trouble. But we don't just have the rep to deal with."

Fox – "Yeah. It's filthy with demons down there. I saw the magical scanning thing they did of the planet. Its nuts. They said there could be millions down there."

A rather large piece of debris bounced off the ship's force field, startling the occupants of the cargo bay and causing a fluorescent light tube to fall from the ceiling and smash against one of the AI tanks.

One of the slayers - "Can someone tell me why everything is falling apart in this universe?"

Kaylee, cringing at the ceiling - "Because we don't have enough duct tape to go around."

The unknown pilot, speaking on the PA system from the bridge – "Brace for impact. Landing in three."

Everyone braced themselves and it seemed like more than three seconds passed before the ship hit the dirt and they all shook forward a little, causing Mal to grumble something about a stupid alliance pilot trying to break his ship apart.

Mal – "Zoe, do the honors."

Zoe, Mal's second in command, pushed a large button and airlock at the back of the ship opened up and a ramp lowered down

Once they got a good look at Unkunnon close up, they saw that it wasn't just an alien world but that it was a very alien world. It was daytime but the sunshine reflected off the landscape as purple, making it look more like night than day. Giant smoke stacks from industry were still billowing out smoke despite the invasion. There was so much smoke hanging in the sky that the air would be toxic with long term exposure.

No one could imagine why anyone would consider living on such an inhospitable planet.

Most of the white light came from inside buildings and from the debris burning up in the atmosphere. Sign posts glowed white and various other colors in the UV light, as did the occasional bit of graffiti.

Despite a lot of gunfire and strange screeching sounds coming in from the distance, it seemed to be quiet in their part of the planet.

Joke, to an SGC soldier – "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

That SGC soldier, who was looking down at an electronic map – "If the magical scan is right, they should be at the landing strip just on the other side of those buildings."

Joke – "Okay. Let's move. Hey, how do we get these robots to obey orders?"

One of the slayers, yelling – "J C N GROUND SUPPORT DRONES. ACTIVATE FREE SENTRY MODE. AUTHORISATION CODE FIVE FOUR BRAVO HOTEL."

All three voice activated AI tanks revved up whatever their engines were and slowly made their way down the ramp and seemed to know not to run into the slightly blue force field that was surrounding the ship.

Joke – "Someone cut the shields."

Someone obeyed her and once the force field fell, the planet came alive with giant chattering cockroaches which appeared out of alleyways and off rooftops to pounce on the invaders.

The AI tanks didn't seem phased by this though and charged forwards with flame throwers turrets opening up. As the demon cockroaches swarmed the AI tanks, the tanks used their massive size and weight to roll through them with relative impunity. The cockroaches had razor sharp limps that weren't very effective against their hardened steel chassis. The SGC soldiers and slayers opened fire too, shooting off the cockroaches that were hanging onto the top of the AI tanks and taking down any that chose to attack them instead.

Dirty air wafted into the cargo bay, making most of the humans already regret coming to this planet. But the soldiers pushed themselves down the ramp, after the slayers and kept on taking out the demon cockroaches.

Before all them had even gotten down the ramp, a sleek looking spaceship rose from the landing strip which the representative was supposed to be at. Everyone who saw this figured out what that meant relatively quickly.

Fox – "Feck."

Then two hunter killer drones flew past and hit the slowly rising craft with heavy plasma caster fire and then bombay door released bombs. The fancy ship's engines faltered and the ship tipped over then blew up with a large rising plume of fire when hit the ground.

Then it blew up even more, tipping over buildings, fracturing concrete and knocking over almost everyone with the unexpected shockwave.

The SGC soldiers were fortunate enough to be wearing helmets and it seemed like no one was hurt even though it seemed to kill many of the more easily breakable demon cockroaches.

As the dust settled, it seemed like the fight was over for them.

Fox – "Whoo! Mission accomplished. Let's go home and get our dicks wet."

Buddy, laughing – "Hey Fox. I hurt my ass on this rock. Take a look at it. My gift to you for your baby shower."

Fox frowned at Buddy then he took a good look at the rock he gave him, while the AI tanks noisily went about exterminating the cockroach demons in the background. Then Fox realized that he was holding in his hands a giant dirty uncut diamond the size of his fist.

Fox – "Is this a diamond?"

Buffy, nodding and laughing – "It's a diamond planet. We're effing rich."

Joke, yelling into a radio – "That's right, the representative just got blown up."

Someone angry on the radio – "And I'm telling you, they haven't been. According to our magic people, their signal is still coming through strong."

Trish, shooting a large silenced rifle and talking at the same time – "Maybe it's like light. It could take a few minutes for them to pick it up that they're dead."

Then the fire around the crash site went out very suddenly and a cold wind blew through the group.

Fox, pocketing his huge diamond – "Or maybe they're not dead. Fire might not kill them."

Buddy – "So what does kill them?"

Joke – "That was never made clear. It doesn't matter. We need to get to them before they recover from that. All teams, move up!"

The slayers ran forward towards the crash site and spreading out, to take out the occasional demon cockroach so they wouldn't be such a problem for the soldiers running up behind them.

Mal, mumbling to himself – "I'll just stay behind with the shields up."

As the slayers pushed their way forwards, part of the crash site exploded, throwing scrap metal up into the air and leaving behind what looked like a messy haired girl wearing some sort of bikini. She didn't look healthy, mostly thanks to odd crystals that she had been impaled with.

When she saw the slayers running for her with swords ready, she lifted her arms and the pieces of broken ship floated up off the ground. Then the large, jagged pieces of metal started spinning around her, creating a whirling tornado of twisted metal. It was both a show of incredible power and a disconcerting form of defense.

The slayers didn't seem to think much of it as they slowed to a walk and kept pushing forwards, into the spinning blades of death. Both the human soldiers and the representative stared in surprise as the slayers made the occasional lightning fast dodge but otherwise walked normally towards their goal.

When the representative started freaking out and thinking about some way to deal with them, one of the slayers closest to her threw their sword and decapitated her. The spinning cyclone of the metal exploded outwards, impaling itself in nearby buildings and bouncing off Serenity's recently installed force field.

Fox – "Mission over! Dick time!"

The decapitated representative fell to her knees but then struggled back onto her feet as another head forced its way up from her chest.

Fox, growling with frustration – "Oh come on. Die you evil bitch."

The other slayers seemed content to let Fox do his best to dismember the representative, only to have them regrow lost limbs at an alarming rate.

Buddy, looking a bit ill – "I don't think you're doing it right."

O-O-O-O

Back at Serenity, Jayne was sitting on the ramp, drinking some whisky and watching the local fauna.

Jayne – "Hey Mal, guess what I'm looking at right now."

Mal - "What?"

Jayne – "You didn't even guess."

Mal, warningly – "Jayne."

Jayne – "It's an eater with no head. He's bashing his hands against the shield. I didn't know they could still move without a head. Hey, they're coming back. Hold on…. open the shield."

The shield popped up and Jayne blew away the headless face eater and two demon cockroaches that were poking at the force field curiously.

As the soldiers and slayers ran up to Serenity, they ran straight up the ramp, the slayers carrying the representative with them and leaving a trail of limbs behind them.

Joke – "Time to go! Get back to Atlantis, now!"

Joke, into her radio – "Atlantis, we've got the rep and we're coming back."

From the radio – "What do you mean you've got the rep? The magic people are still saying they're alive. Hu-hey!"

There was a small struggle on the radio until Buffy's familiar voice popped up.

Buffy, from the radio – "Joke? How's it going down there?"

Joke – "Fan-fricken-tastic, ma'am. I could break into song. The rep is proving annoyingly indestructible."

Buffy – "We were worried that could happen. Bring her back up here. We've got a plan."

Joke, frowning – "Her? How did you know it was a girl?"

But there wasn't a reply as Buffy had given the headset back to the official radio operator.

Heidi and Future Buffy were giving themselves frowns as the boys in their team occupied themselves with mutilating the representative.

Buffy - "That world, it felt wrong."

Joke - "It was freaky, that's for sure. Could do with a theme park or two."

Buffy - "No. I mean, it really feels wrong. Supernaturally wrong."

Joke – "Really? I didn't pick up anything except for all the demon cockroaches."

Heidi – "You're not exactly magic girl. I felt something too. Can't put my finger on it though."

O-O-O-O

As Serenity lifted off, the war was basically over. Atlantis kept dropping hunter killer flying drones onto the planet. All enemy spaceships and anti air defenses on the planet had been destroyed, meaning that the only problem to deal with now was the demon cockroaches.

The best the cockroaches could do now was to smash civilian flying vehicles packed full of explosives against the hunter killer drones that the forces of good had left behind on the planet. Since they had kidnapped the representative, the SGC and slayer teams had lifted off, leaving the cockroaches to their fate.

Queen Buffy watched all this from the bridge of Altantis, along with Tara, Harmony and Weir.

While they watched the destruction on the surface, Weir realized that the war was over and she was surrounded by possibly evil undead girls. She stepped back from the window and took a look around the room.

It seemed like there was an equal number of vampires to humans in the room. Considering how deadly the slayers had proven, she realized that they wouldn't have much trouble taking over Atlantis now.

Tara – "Oooh. Pretty."

Turning back to the window, Weir saw nuclear weapons detonate on the surface of that world, looking like bright white flowers blossoming to meet the sun.

Harmony - "Aren't cockroaches immune to nuclear weapons? I think I remember hearing about that somewhere."

Buffy – "Maybe. But I'm pretty sure they're not immune to vacuum."

As the nuclear weapons destroyed the artificial gravity that had been installed into the crust of the small moon, the atmosphere floated off, softly blowing debris out with it.

Everyone watched the death of the small world as the last representative of the eaters was brought in, shackled in cold iron. It wasn't apparent on the surface of the planet but she had long ginger hair and would've been rather fetching if she wasn't crying and whimpering in pain.

Weir – "What? Who is this?"

Buffy – "That would be the representative."

Buffy jumped from the second floor and landed in front of the prisoner in the middle of the room with apparent ease. The prisoner looked up at her, afraid.

Queen Buffy – "Strange. You don't seem too evil."

The future version of Buffy tossed a black and red mottled crystal on the floor by Queen Buffy's feet.

Future Buffy – "She had those crystals embedded through her body. They're magical. Dark magic."

Heidi – "We're guessing they helped corrupt her."

Queen Buffy, talking to the prisoner – "Is that true, Sasha?"

Sasha, the prisoner looked up at her surprised to hear her name. Joke's tac team seemed surprised too. But Sasha didn't reply, possibly because she was too scared.

Queen Buffy – "We've been talking to your friend, Fetch. We found him all alone on your crappy cold earth. I'll tell you what. I'll give –"

Queen Buffy stopped talking to the prisoner to look at what the silver spandex the tac teams were wearing. After her eyes alternated between Fox's and Buddy's bulging packages, she shook her head as if to clear it then turned back to the prisoner.

Queen Buffy – "We're going to give you a choice. You can either join us or die."

Sasha, laughing pitifully – "You can't kill me. People have tried."

Fox – "We really have."

Queen Buffy, grinning – "Trust me. We've figured out how. The reason you haven't died so far is because of your unusual ancestry. Part demon god, part fey, part klistic demon. Can't say I've run across that before. But that's easy to get around once you know how."

Queen Buffy, leaning closer – "And we know how."

Sasha, gulping with fear – "What was that part about joining you?"

Queen Buffy – "Well, we need to kill you anyway. That doesn't mean you have to stay dead. How about it? Want to be my one of my kiddies?"

Queen Buffy opened her mouth and let her diamond tipped fangs slide down. The prisoner stopped her struggling and gave Buffy a weird look.

Sasha – "What? I'm pretty sure I can't be turned."

Queen Buffy, grinning toothily – "But you've never tried it before, have you? Think about it this way, it's your only hope."

Sasha weighed her few remaining options and eventually sighed.

Sasha – "Fine. But if I turn out evil, I'm going to rip your throat out."

Queen Buffy pounced on Sasha, knocking the chains out of her handler's hands. Buffy used both her hands to tear apart the iron collar around the prisoner's neck then lunged down, violently sinking her fangs into the Sasha's neck.

The undead in the room stared, transfixed by the display while the humans in the room recoiled at it.

Shepard – "Gawd, do you have to do that here!?"

O-O-O-O

Fifteen minutes later.

The war was officially over. All eater activities had ceased. There was just the problem of barely sentient demons and the occasional small pockets of scourge to worry about now. While the human forces took stock on everything that had happened, the vampires took control of the bridge on Atlantis and started partying. The humans couldn't believe they still had enough energy to party.

From the second story of the bridge, the Outtaverse versions of Tara and Xander watched the party below.

Tara, watching Fox air humping against Harmony – "Long day. I'm tired."

Xander – "I hear that."

Tara – "Harmony's really going to be aggressive in bed tonight. I can tell."

Xander chuckled as he let his face drop into his hands.

Tara, looking at him weirdly – "What?"

Xander, his laughing muffled by his hands – "You."

Tara – "What about me?"

Xander, dropping his hands – "You and Harmony. It's ridiculous."

Tara frowned, which made Xander roll his eyes.

Xander – "Not in a bad way. It's just… look at it from my perspective. Tara, you're incredibly beautiful."

Tara, her eyebrows crinkling together with uncertainty – "Okay."

Xander – "Then you have Harmony, who's also blonde. I'll even admit that she's beautiful. Just don't tell her I said that. But she's also the complete opposite of you. You're nice and gentle while she's… she's Harmony."

Tara, frowning – "She can be gentle."

Xander, sighing – "I'm sure she can be. Maybe I shouldn't find it funny but I do. Sorry. At least it's better than her and Giles. That was creepy."

Tara – "It really was."

Xander – "And she seems happier with you too."

Tara – "She's said that too… God, I really don't think I'll be able to handle her tonight. I've tired myself out flying Atlantis."

Xander, correcting her – "You mean you tired yourself destroying countless spaceships and helping to bring an interdimensional war to an end. I think she'll understand."

Tara – "Probably. Then she'll probably say that she can do all the work, that I can just lie there if I want."

Tara, at Xander's odd look – "I can't believe I'm saying all this out loud. It's like my mouth just says everything my brain is thinking."

Xander – "I'm sure you'll get used to it. At least you're not as bad as some of – Arr!"

Xander turned his head away from the party when the girls started cheering on Buddy and Fox to kiss each other. Tara tilted her head as she watched them and wasn't really sure how she felt about that.

Tara, shaking her head – "Nope. That's not really working for me."

Someone screeching in the party – "Hey! Let me go, young lady! Stop that!"

A small team of watchers had gotten accosted by drunken slayers who seemed eager to rid them of tweed.

Another watcher yelling – "I say! This is serious!"

Yet another watcher – "THE WAR IS NOT OVER!"

At that, all eyes turned to him and the slayers clambering over him stopped and backed off

That watcher straightened himself and his clothes then hemmed after the music was turned off.

That watcher – "Actually the war is over. Now let us past."

This received groans and moans and cries of "You bastard!" and "You almost gave me a coronary." but it got the watchers freed and they kept pushing through the party, up the stairs and into Weir's office.

As the music turned back on, Tara slumped back against the railing, Xander watched as Weir stood to meet the watchers, who seemed to have urgent news.

Xander dug around his head a little but Faith, Tell and Dawn weren't anywhere to bounce ideas off. They were obviously spending time somewhere deep within their brain, doing who knows what in celebration. He concentrated a bit, putting out some feelers to draw them back to reality.

Xander, whispering – "Tara, do you think you could listen in on what they're saying?"

Tara – "The watchers?"

Xander nodded and Tara turned away from the party and tried to focus on their voices.

Tara tilted her head different ways until she heard the conversation.

Tara, her eyes pointing towards the ceiling as she listened in – "Okay, they're… they're concerned about the planet. The nuclear warheads didn't kill the demons, no, wait, it didn't… what? There's a… oh, that doesn't sound good."

Xander – "What is it?"

Tara, still listening – "They think there's an elder god on that planet. Oh, wait, no. They… what?"

Tara stopped listening and looked out the window. Xander saw that Weir and the watchers had started doing that too. Following their lead, he looked out the window and looked at the small planet Unkunnon.

Tara – "Our universe doesn't have a planet where Unkunnon is. That's because Unkunnon isn't a planet."

Xander - "What is that then?"

A half drunk slayer – "HEY, WHAT IS THAT?"

Unkunnon had broken open like an egg and now giant coiled tentacles were ever so slowly unfurling into space.

Tara – "It's an elder god."

Xander – "Ahhhh fudge sticks."

As they watched, the giant monstrosity pushed the thick shell of its egg apart to reveal a large Kansas sized beak and tentacles long enough to wrap around earth sized planets.

Buddy – "Okay, that is just stupid! What are we supposed to do with that!?"

Fox – "Nuke the hell out of it."

An unknown slayer – "Nukes just woke that thing up! Nukes are probably like caffeine for it."

As the other personalities in Xander's mind came to the fore, Xander filled them in and they came up with an unusual solution to this problem.

Xander, as the music was turned off again – "Tara, do you trust me?"

Tara – "Yes… why?"

Xander wrapped one arm around her waist and another behind her back. Then he leaned in and kissed her. She moaned, mostly from surprise and indignation. Before she pushed him away, she felt something cold and wet flow through her and take away her objections. Then it started taking more.

As everyone else in the large room stared out the windows and some people frantically tried to get a hold of key personnel around the base, Xander and Tara started glowing white. Then they grew brighter and others in the room started turning their way.

Their light filled the room but didn't hurt the eyes of those present. Long tendrils of light spread out from them, passing through those present with no apparent harm. Then the room exploded with whiteness than didn't go away even after they closed their eyes.

Instead of screams of panic, the entire room was tranquil in the soft whiteness.

Then the white faded away. As people turned back to the window, they saw Unkunnon burning brightly, folding in on itself and slowly turning into a miniature star.

Then they turned back to Tara and Xander, who had stopped kissing and were leaning against each others foreheads. Tara's position had changed too. She had her arms about her shoulders and a hand on her back of his head.

After a few seconds of them standing like that, no one looked like they wanted to say anything and it started to get really awkward.

Xander – "Whoo. Awkward. Ummm, could we not tell Anya about this? She'd get really jealous."

Tara – "Yeah, okay. And now I'm really tired. Fainting now."

Thankfully, he was in the perfect situation to catch her when she fainted.

Fox, to Buddy – "Now that is how you kiss. You do it like that."

O-O-O-O

A few minutes later.

In a slightly darker room with an odd purple tint.

Some absolutely annoying girl with a valley accent - "Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt. It's so big. She looks like one of those rap guy's girlfriends. But, you know, who understands those rap guys? They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute, kay."

Thankfully, a techno beat started blotting out most of her bleating.

Whiny girl – "I mean, her butt is just so big. I can't believe it's just so round, it's like out there. I mean, gross. Look! She's just so … black!"

Stage lights turned and shone upon some of more well endowed slayers, who were walking backwards, bouncing their butts up and down.

Sir Mix-a-lot, singing with the music – "I like big butts! And I can not lie."

A group of slayers were performing a dance routine that they had prepared earlier and even Weir found herself entertained by this.

Weir – "Where did they get the stage lights?"

Shepard, finding this more funny than anything – "I have no idea. But this has to be against some sort of SGC rule or guideline."

Xander – "I say let them to enjoy themselves."

Shepard – "Okay but only because you just turned a giant world eating space monster into a small sun."

Xander, smirking – "Yeah, I'm going to be riding that scooter for a while."

More slayers and vampires arrived from the mirror gates, which were finally working after the subspace dampeners had cooled down.

One in particular seemed less than happy to be there, a tiny but cute girl who walked straight toward Joke and he tac team.

The tiny but cute messenger – "Hey, Joke. Where's the team's bitch?"

Joke, laughing at that nickname – "Fox? He's over there."

The messenger looked to where joke pointed and spotted Fox playfully licking some fun-sized girl's bleeding scalp.

The messenger, to Fox – "Hey Fox. You should get back home."

Fox, casually – "The gates are open? Cool. Yeah, I should get back."

The messenger – "Your girl is having her kid."

Fox stopped what he was doing, mid-lick.

O-O-O-O

VampVerse, Undercity hospital.

Fox had ran with superpowered speed from the portal room to the hospital where they were performing on Lexx, leaving Buddy in the dust. Even after running all that distance, he arrived at the hospital with way too much energy to be treated seriously.

Faith, grabbing a nearby nurse – "Where's Lexx?"

The nurse – "Who?"

Faith, yelling a bit too loud – "The pregnant vampire!"

The nurse, pointing at some swinging doors – "In there."

He ran at the swinging doors so fast that they tore off their hinges instead of swinging open, causing him to trip over, fly into the room upside down and hit the heavily reinforced concrete wall with a splat

Lexx – "Fox! What the hell?"

Fox, recovering from that surprisingly quickly – "Lexx? Are you…"

He stopped talking when he saw Lexx on a bed with a little bundle of joy cradled in her hands. Faith and Lara were on both sides of the bed, looking a little alarmed at Fox's entrance.

Fox, to Lexx – "Are you okay?"

Lexx – "I'm fine. The doctors were right about me being unable to give birth the normal way though. They had to cut it out."

Fox – "What? Are you okay?"

Lara – "She's fine. They used surgical tools, Fox, not their teeth."

Fox looked down at his son and didn't know what to feel. It was pink and winkled and sucking gently on a milk bottle.

Buddy, tripping a little over the broken door – "What the hell?"

Fox, grinning – "Hey Buddy. Check it out. I've got a kid."

Lexx, before Buddy asked – "And I'm fine. More than fine."

Faith, chuckling – "I bet you are. Finally stopped that slayer powered baby kicking you in the kidneys."

Lexx – "Yeah. And now I can have sex again without worrying about squishing him."

Fox, smirking – "Eww. Don't talk about sex. A baby came out of you. Wait, he's a boy?"

Lexx, grinning widely – "Yes. He's a boy."

Fox, to Buddy – "He's a boy!"

Lexx – "He's strong too. We've made a super baby."

Fox, raising an eyebrow – "We did?"

Faith, frowning – "You didn't hear about that? The council has a whole mess of nubile young girls they want Xander to impregnate. They think it will create an army of super powered humans."

Buddy - "Gee. That's harsh, having to boink until you can't boink no more. Pity him."

Faith - "It'll be done by artificial insemination. Besides, while us vamps might be able to handle his unbridled awesomeness, they want to use normal girls who don't have wombs of steel. I just know something stupid would happen like their spine getting broken during labor."

Faith, chuckling – "Yeah. Guess he'd be stuck with slayers then."

Buddy – "I still don't see how that's a bad thing. Besides it sounding like something nazis would do."

Fox, to Lexx – "I'm sorry I couldn't be here for you."

Lexx – "It's okay. Honestly. The magic of childbirth isn't very magical."

Lara, looking queasy – "And you're lucky you missed seeing the afterbirth."

Fox – "The what?"

Lexx, cooing at the cuteness bundled up in front of her – "Aww, look, he's opening his eyes. Hi there, little one. Meet your daddy."

Lexx, looking up at Fox – ""Have you ever seen such blue eyes?"

Fox smiled at first then backed off slightly with slightly disgusted look on his face.

Fox – "Actually, yes, I have."

Buddy didn't get the significance at first but then fell over laughing.

Fox, with some disappointment – "Lexx, really? Pheonix?"

Buddy – "I was scared I might've been the dad."

Fox – "Hey, I'm still the dad. This is my kid cos she's my girl. But really, Lexx? What the hell?"

Lexx, shrinking in her bed a little – "We only did it sometimes. Mostly for his sake."

Lara, gasping and laughing at the same time – "I think I remember when it happened too."

Fox, sighing – "What am I blaming you for? I'm the one who fell in love with you and your slutty ways. But I'm still going to kill him for this. Where is he anyway?"

Lara – "Feeding his girlfriend."

Fox, trying not to laugh – "He's got a girlfriend now? And she's a suck?"

Lara – "It's my sister suck, Vi. Remember? The redhead?"

They were interrupted as the familiar sound of the PA system crackled.

Lara, frowning – "They're a few hours too early for the morning announcements."

Buddy, grinning from ear to ear – "They're probably going to announce the end of the war."

Lara, blinking – "Really?"

O-O-O-O

In the public announcements booth.

The PA girl moved aside and let Queen Buffy sit down at her chair. In the room was also her Willow, several tac team leaders and her "generals".

With some hesitation, she tapped the microphone in front of her and got booming static from the PA system which showed that it was indeed on.

Buffy, speaking into the microphone – "Hello, this is Buffy speaking."

Around the undercity, almost everyone stopped what they doing to perk their ears at the public announcement.

Buffy – "I have ruled the slayers for a long time. I demanded your servitude. With some of you, I cut your lives short. I've taken a lot. But this hardship came with a promise. A promise that many believed was based on a lie. I promised that when the eaters were all dead, I'd let you free. Now, the war is over. You are now all free. Free to live your –"

Buffy was interrupted as a tall beret wearing girl yanked the microphone off the desk and yelled into it.

Beret wearing General – "LET'S GET NEKKID!"

Then the beret wearing girl ran out of the room as the entire undercity cheered at that sentiment. Queen Buffy stood up and frowned as the cheering drowned out even the noise of the PA.

Joke, turning off the PA – "I think they get the idea."

Buffy, pouting – "I had a speech and everything."

While Buffy was busy pouting, Willow noticed that the generals and tac team leaders all were wearing strange evil smiles.

Willow, getting a bit scared – "Uh, Buffy?"

Buffy turned around to her then saw the traitorous looks on her most trusted allies.

Buffy, almost trying to laugh it off – "H-hey guys. What's going on?"

Bonny – "Frankly, Buffy. We've been taking your crap for way too long. Hold them down. Hold them both down."

The girls she thought were her friends surged forwards and pressed both her and Willow against the solid PA desk.

Buffy, overpowered but still struggling – "If you hurt her, I'll kill you all!"

Joke – "Buffy, you always were a … Bonny? Is that really necessary?"

Bonny was having fun kissing Willow, who had turned her game face on and was doing her best to bite the other redhead but failing miserably.

Bonny – "No but its fun."

Buffy – "What the hell is this about?"

Giana, walking into the room – "It's about this, Buffy."

Buffy gasped then went angry.

Buffy – "You bitch! What did you do?!"

Giana – "Nothing much. Just this."

Buffy gasped as Giana lifted one of Buffy's legs and stabbed her in the butt cheek. Giana wasn't using a knife but a giant horse needle full of a dirty yellow drug.

Giana – "Have a nice vacation, Buffy. You deserve it."

Buffy relaxed and rolled her eyes. After she was given a full injection, the other girls let her go.

Buffy, holding her butt with some pain – "Was all that really necessary?"

Joke – "Sort of was. You really hate needles."

Buffy – "I mean did you have to stab me in the ass with that thing?"

Giana – "No but it's more fun that way."

Then everyone's eyes were on Willow, who had tackled Bonny to the floor and was throttling them. Despite the violence, Bonny had a big humorous smile on her face and seemed pretty happy about her lot.

Bonny, with a strangled voice – "You hit me because you can't win with words."

Willow, pissed – "You've always had it out for me. All because I've got Buffy and you don't."

Bonny sniggered as Buffy placed a gentle hand on Willow's shoulder.

Buffy, speaking gently – "Actually, we're not that compatible. She likes girls who are a little more dominant in bed. Girls who are more like you."

Willow, stopping her throttling – "Huh?"

Buffy – "And I might have let slip a few things about you in idle conversation."

Willow, embarrassed by her actions – "Ah. That explains a few things."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, Faith's bedroom.

Faith had been regaling the events of the past few days to Buffy, who received the news skeptically.

Buffy – "Really Faith? You expect me to believe that all happened?"

Faith, laughing – "I'm not lying. It's over."

Buffy – "Really?"

Faith – "Yup. The war, the spell, everything."

Buffy, frowning – "Strange. Shouldn't I feel different?"

This took Faith's smile off her face. She looked Buffy in the eyes until she groaned and let her face sink into the sheets. Then she said something very rude.

Buffy – "Still love me, huh?"

With her face still embedded in the sheets, Faith punched her bed like a kid having a tantrum.

Faith, bouncing off the bed – "Damnit! We blew him up! We killed Mister Shadow and all the face eaters are gone. The spell should be over."

Buffy – "Are you sure you killed him?"

Faith – "Damn sure. People don't come back from what happened to him. If killing him didn't stop the spell then what will?"

Buffy – "I don't know but are you getting this sinking feeling in your stomach too?"

Faith, disgruntled – "Yes. Yes, I am and I don't like it. This is bull!"

O-O-O-O

End of chapter

Continued in next chapter.


	75. 21d Calling a do over

Episode 21, chapter D : Calling a do over

Authors notes : To Howard Russell, I actually knew that many new born babies have blue eyes but Fox probably wouldn't know that. Some have blonde hair which goes away too.

And no, I wasn't try to set Willow up with Bonny. I was just making some fun about Willow mistaking Bonny's signals as jealousy over Buffy. I can really imagine her thinking that people would want Buffy before wanting her.

In the reviews section, someone by the name of FanityFan brought up an interesting and very valid point, that I'd been introducing too many characters, making it unreadable after chapter 50. I have to admit that I had lost that Scooby gang cohesion. The influx of new characters was partially because of the slayer army that Buffy had been growing in secret over the centuries. I fragmented the Scoobies by sticking them into different places in a hierarchy to create a sense of scale with the different operations going on. But looking back at it, I really should've tried to keep the characters together more. Or gone with a different scenario. Actually, the eaters are all kinda sucky too. Probably should've rehashed an old movie monster.

In any case, this is the second to last chapter. So it's not like you've got a heap more to suffer through. Have fun with that by the way.

O-O-O-O

In Cordelia's bunker like concrete apartment in the undercity.

Cordelia was sleeping peacefully, spooned around Harmony.

After Cordelia's run in with one of Oberon's sultrier bodyguards, Harmony realized what Cordelia had been doing after she picked up certain girly smells coming off Cordelia's breath. After a little blackmail on Harmony's part and a somewhat confusing physical confrontation, Cordelia showed Harmony just how incredible girl on girl sex could be.

Since that night, they had never looked back. But neither wanted to advertise what they did in their spare time. It was mostly because they thought the rest of the Cordettes would be horrified. But others had picked up on the signals the two tall girls had been giving each other recently. That's why when three black figures formed out of a mass of black smoke, they weren't surprised by what they saw.

Two of them silently snuck around the bed and then ever so slowly leaned over the two sleeping beauties. They slowly backed away from the bed, leaving blood filled baby bottles stuck gently between in the sleeping girl's lips. As Cordelia and Harmony slowly suckled on the baby bottles in their sleep, two of the black figures removed their balaclavas to reveal the future versions of Buffy and Willow. The future girls leaned over the two sleeping girls and grinned like idiots while the third person, Heidi, took a photo of the scene.

Willow – "Nice."

Buffy, seeing the two girls suck on their bottles – "Aww, that's so cute."

Willow – "It is, isn't it? So who should we punk now? Dawn?"

Buffy, shaking her head – "What if we catch them when they're busy with Tara? I don't want to see that."

Willow – "Hadn't thought of that."

Heidi, the girl with the camera – "If you want a challenge, try doing that to the younger version of Willow. It'd be impossible with Queen Buffy around though. She always senses us coming."

Buffy, frowning – "Umm, I think those two are still awake and doing stuff."

Willow – "How would you know?... Oh."

Heidi – "Oh?"

Willow – "I think Buffy can sense what her alternates are doing. Dawn has trouble with that sometimes. Oh, is mini me and you…?"

Buffy, growing very uncomfortable – "No. I mean, I don't know. I don't see her do anything to the other you ever, honest."

Willow, uncomfortable too – "I wouldn't hold it against you if you did. It's not something you can control."

Heidi, with a snigger – "Do you two want some time alone?"

Buffy, folding her arms – "Heidi, I told you before, normal people don't have sex with their friends."

Heidi – "It sounds so weird hearing Buffy say that."

There were some murmurs from the bed and all three girls panicked a little. Willow ran around the bed and jumped into Buffy's arms then all three of them turned back into black smoke and left the room through a tiny crack in the wall.

Harmony lifted her head off the pillow, looked around the room and frowned at the blood filled baby bottle lying next to her face. Then she stuck it back in her mouth and went back to sleep.

O-O-O-O

Queen Buffy's office.

Queen Buffy wasn't doing anything as fun as her future self was. She was sitting down at her desk, looking over the huge list of expenses for the past month. The war had been more expensive than she would've ever imagined. On top of that, she had set up a system of stipends for those slayers who had decided to move away from the undercity. She knew it would be irresponsible to let them go without some sort of regular income. Exactly how much each got depends on a number of criteria, creating an overly complicated system which was giving her a headache.

She sighed with some relief when Giles walked in, giving her a good excuse to ignore all that for later.

Buffy, happy to see her old watcher – "Ahh, Giles. I'm glad you could make it."

Giles, not so comfortable – "Hello Buffy. What is this about?"

Buffy, chuckling a little – "Giles, you can relax with me. I'm not going to hurt you."

Giles – "I didn't think you were going to. I just wanted to know why you summoned me."

Buffy – "Can't a slayer talk to her watcher now and again?"

Giles, relaxing a little – "You wanted to talk?"

Buffy – "I'll admit, I didn't call you here just to talk about old times. I wanted to talk to you about a situation you may not be aware of. As you would know, the watchers council had been very understanding with that war against the face eaters. Thanks to them allowing us to recruit new sucks straight out of their potential slayer pool, we had more than enough F-bombs to destroy the eaters. We killed 'em good."

Giles, uncomfortably hemming – "Ahem, quite."

Buffy – "The problem is that now we now have more sucks than we know what to do with. Vampires just drink blood but sucks, they're harder to feed than you think. They're hungry hungry hippos and some men have really been holding back on us."

Giles suddenly realized that they weren't in Buffy's office anymore but in the bedroom she had installed right next to her office for feeding and the occasional bit of fun with her girlfriend.

Giles, as Willow gently wrapped her hands around him from behind – "You're hypnotizing me, aren't you?"

Buffy – "Is that a problem?"

Giles, as Willow took her time unbuttoning his shirt – "Ummm. I'm really not sure."

Then there was a knock at the door to her bedroom and Buffy sighed.

Buffy, to Giles – "I'll be right back."

Buffy turned around and opened the door as Willow pulled Giles onto the bed.

Buffy – "I really hope this is important."

Bonny, gravely serious – "It's very important. The eaters are back and they brought big friends."

Buffy, without looking back at the bed – "Will, I'll be back soon. And for god's sake, be gentle with Giles. He's only human after all."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, a chapel at night.

The chapel was mostly empty except for the Scoobies who had assembled in front of a priest at one end. The men were almost all wearing tuxedos while the women were wearing nice dresses. Some of the dresses were green. Several vampires were there too. Some were from the vampverse, like future Xander, Tara and her two Dawns. Spike was there too, along with Outtaverse's version of Tara and Harmony who had taken time out of Atlantis duty to witness this most special occasion.

In front of the priest stood Xander, full of anticipation and perhaps a little fear.

Buffy was there too, wearing her green bridesmaid dress. On one wrist, she was still wearing her personal subspace dampener that looked like a clunky metal bracelet. On the other wrist, she was wearing an equally clunky bracelet made out of metal wire, light colored wood and pink crystals that a vampire witch had made for her. It was supposed to negate the superstar spell she had on her but Buffy really didn't think it was working.

Twist and Betsy were in the audience too and as Xander sweated in his tuxedo, he realized that he really had to ask Twist a question.

Xander – "Twist, remember back when I was first going to get married and you were going to give me some advice. What was it?"

Twist – "If you want some advice, stop panicking. Relax, this is a good thing, remember?"

Future Xander – "Here's some advice. If someone comes up to you, saying that they're you from the future, punch them in the face for me, okay?"

Xander chuckled – "Yeah, I'll remember that."

Harmony's cell phone went off and she looked shocked and embarrassed as she turned it off.

The priest – "Please turn off all cell phones or at least turn them to vibrate."

Harmony, quietly – "Sorry."

Kennedy, by the doors at the front of the chapel - "Here she is. Start the music."

An elderly women started up Wagner's bridal chorus on the pipe organ as Kennedy opened up the doors and Anya walked in, arm in arm with Giles who was going to give her away for the ceremony.

As they walked down the aisle, the ground under their feet started to rumble softly. At first, not everyone noticed it but as it grew louder, it became rather obvious. Kennedy took a look out the doors into the chapel and her eyes widened when she saw the streets filled with an army of eaters. She quickly slammed the doors shut, dropped the bar to lock it then pulled a church pew over to brace it even more.

Xander, with some concern - "Anya, I thought we weren't going to invite any family this time."

Kennedy, both angry and freaking – "They're eaters!"

Twist – "Kennedy, get away from the door!"

The door was blown apart by gunfire from outside, showering Kennedy with splinters who narrowly avoided getting shot.

Twist, to Kennedy – "Over here, now!"

As Kennedy ran towards the rest of the Scoobies, Twist said pointed out two support beams to Betsy. As eaters charged into the church, she struck the support beams with a fireball each. The high ceiling started caving in, collapsing down heavily on the eaters and blocking the front entrance quite effectively.

Anya, distraught – "Why does this keep happening to me? All I wanted to do is get married."

Then she saw that the priest was still there and turned to him and smiled.

Anya – "I don't suppose you could still marry us?"

Xander, as the chapel kept collapsing – "I think we'll have to postpone it."

Twist – "Betsy, can you get us out of here?"

Betsy – "I can't do that around that techno jobby Buffy has."

Buffy, looking down at the subspace dampener on her wrist – "This thing? I can turn it off you know."

Betsy – "Okay then, everyone huddle around. Get in close, this could get rough."

The Scoobies helped the priest and organist huddle around Betsy as the eaters broke into the back of the chapel. Then their world flashed red and they found themselves in the middle of a desert. There was a large watering hole surrounded by grass and cacti littered the scenery. The sun was about to rise in the distance, which Spike didn't seem too pleased with.

The priest – "What? What happened? Where are we?"

Twist – "Yeah, where are we?"

Betsy, to Twist – "Hey, you know I have trouble teleporting large groups."

Buffy – "I think we're still somewhere in America. Maybe Mexico."

Giles, leading the priest and organist away to talk about something – "How about we have a nice chat? Hmm?"

Buffy sighed, turned her subspace dampener back on then sat down on the sand.

Buffy – "Well, that sucked."

Anya – "I thought those eater guys were taken care of. What the hell are they doing crashing our wedding?"

Kennedy – "It makes tactical sense, when you think about it. When they get together, Xander and Tara are our most powerful weapon against them."

Anya, raising an eyebrow – "They are? Since when?"

Xander – "What with everything that's happened, I forgot to mention that part. It's hardly important but we need to get Tara back to Atlantis."

One of the Dawns present – "Uh, guys. What's that?"

At the top of some nearby hills, the air was warping with what looked like a mirage but it was actually a bit too cold for that. Then in warped a car sized, egg shaped meatball with giant eyes and several twenty foot long tentacles. It also looked to be floating in midair.

Same Dawn – "Now what is that!?"

Then a swarm of face eaters warped in around it and started running in their direction.

Buffy - "Crap! GILES!"

Twist, looking sideways at Buffy – "They're chasing us. You look like you know why."

Buffy – "Not the time. Betsy, can you teleport us again? Maybe a different dimension? Or at least somewhere where we have allies?"

Spike – "And somewhere with less sun?"

Betsy, as the Scoobies huddled around her again – "I make no promises."

O-O-O-O

Outtaverse, an underground stargate control bunker.

Several human generals from several different dimensions had assembled to assess the new emergency that the eaters had suddenly put them in. Queen Buffy felt out of place, being the only openly supernatural being in the room. The fact that they seemed to be blaming her for this situation wasn't helping.

Queen Buffy – "We have no idea how the eaters are still around. We took care of Mister Shadow and we've taken out all the representatives. We've practically made the scourge extinct too. There shouldn't be anyone else who could support them."

One of the generals hemmed and placed down some colored print outs on the table, showing several large meatball like creatures.

That same general – "We believe that the eaters have evolved, moved beyond needing human representatives. We've already got several reports of these overseers that seem to follow the eaters into battle."

Buffy, frowning – "I've heard much the same. With some luck, some of my soldiers have already managed take one down. Our researchers have come to the conclusion that they're a demonic parasite we call the plagas. The plagas had been infected by the same process that makes new eaters."

One of the generals - "Plagas? Why does that sound familiar?"

Buffy – "It's Spanish for plague. In my world at least, they were popular around the same time as the black plague was in Spain. In many ways, they're like the eaters. They can infect people and take control over their bodies. In my world, they were slowly eradicated by slayers, pirates and the occasional Spanish armada. Or so we thought."

Yet another general - "If there's no representatives, what do we do? Kill all of these plagas?"

Buffy – "We could just kill the eaters. According to my experts in interspatial mechanics, whatever that means, the dimensional quarantine is weakening. Since the eaters seem to be the reason for the quarantine, that suggests that their numbers are getting low. If we can keep them on the ropes, we could finish this the hard way."

The general with the print outs – "That could be difficult. As I might have mentioned earlier, my world's brightest minds have found a way to triangulate eaters when they teleport in. It seems to work for all dimensional travel. By coordinating with several of our keyhole satellites, we have detected large… masses. I would greatly appreciate it if you could enlighten us to what they are."

The general pulled out some more print outs, which he laid on the table for all to see.

Buffy, squinting one of the printouts – "I'm not sure. Is that in an ocean?"

Printout general – "Yes. That one is off the coast of Mexico. That small white shape next to it is an ocean liner. That shot was a bit blurry as it seemed to be swimming at an excess of two hundred KPH. Perhaps this shot is more illuminating. This one seemed content to take a rest just half an hour's drive out of Shenzhen in the Guangdong province of China. And if that's blurry, I've got plenty more."

Another general – "As do the rest of us."

Buffy – "Ummmm. I might be wrong but I think they might be elder gods. Which isn't good. Could I borrow these print outs? I've got an expert on them back home."

O-O-O-O

Twenty minutes later.

Illyria stood in front of a table full of print outs with someone recording her with digital cameras. She ignored them as she sorted the print outs in order of urgency.

Queen Buffy – "So you're familiar with them?"

Illyria – "Several of them. The rest, I'm familiar with their strain. Except this one."

Illyria held up a picture of a yellow blob with some disdain – "I have no idea what it is but it's of no significance."

She threw the yellow blob picture over her shoulder then picked up three pictures which she handed to Buffy.

Illyria – "Those three are where we should focus our attentions."

Buffy – "We're focusing our attention on all of them. They're playing Godzilla out there."

Illyria – "I have seen that movie. It looked fun."

A small smile crept on Illyria's mouth while she mused about tearing skyscrapers apart with her tentacles.

Buffy, frowning as she picked up another of the printout – "I don't think those three are that dangerous. Hell, this whale-bat thing just tore the head off the statue of liberty. Actually, what the heck is it supposed to be anyway? And one these you say is important isn't even moving. It washed up onto the shore in Alaska and hasn't been doing anything."

Illyria, back to serious – "You must trust my judgment in this matter. That particular old one, Nikrath, the yellow goat tree, she doesn't need to move. It grows armies. Before you realize it, a black forest of its young shall be dragging themselves across your world, terraforming that into a hell unlike any you have seen. Not only must the trunk be severed from the ground, all seedlings must be torn apart, lest Nikrath grow anew from one its proxies."

Buffy – "Okay. So it's an army maker. What about the others? What makes them special?"

Illyria – "They're not only powerful but ambitious and will be immune to conventional weaponry."

Buffy - "You do know we're using bunker busters, right? Those things will go through anything."

Illyria - "I am aware of how powerful your weapons are. But this large green sack of protoplasm has formed an armored hide out of what you would call degenerate matter. You could hit it with a nuke and not even push it over. This other shameless excuse for an old one, Derleth, can also create impenetrable telekinetic force fields."

Buffy considered this and slowly nodded in understanding.

Buffy – "Okay. Fine. We'll focus on these and let the army boys deal with the rest."

Illyria – "However, we will need to create suitable containment for all of them. I shall oversee that part of this operation. I would suggest that you send some of your lesser warriors to fight Nikrath. I shall also oversee a weapon with which to weaken the green sack one and then I shall deal with Derleth personally."

Buffy – "Personally? You knew him?"

Illyria – "In a fashion."

Buffy looked down at the picture of Derleth then looked back at Illyria.

Buffy – "Did you used to date?"

Illyria – "Maybe."

O-O-O-O

VampVerse, a secure but undisclosed location outside of Sunnydale, their new portal room.

Several door sized mirror gates were active around the room, with a variety of people walking in and out of them to travel between dimensions. The undercity was now blanketed with subspace dampeners to stop eaters from warping in. But those devices also stopped mirror gates from working. So a new portal room had been established on the outskirts of Sunnydale.

As one mirror gate was opened, Buddy and Fox walked through, both of which were covered in blood and grime and in need of a good shower.

Buddy, seeing Joke waiting for them – "You called?"

Behind Joke was Buffy, Heidi, several other girls from their tac team and a few girls they didn't know.

Joke – "The eaters are at it again. This time they've brought Elder gods."

Buddy, shrugging as if that's nothing – "I've dealt with one of those before. It's actually how I met my girlfriend. Good times."

Fox – "Where are the rest of the crew? Like Kendra and Catherine?"

Joke – "Like almost every slayer we've got, Kendra and Catherine are all on liquid vacations. We've stopped giving them the injections but it'll be at four days until that gunk is flushed out of their system and they're back to being proper slayers. Until that time, they're not on active duty. Also, from here on out, we're volunteers. Some of the slayers didn't want to come back."

Buffy, walking onto the scene with Heidi – "And some did. Hey guys."

Buddy, smirking – "Hey hottest girl in the world. Looking good, as usual. Who's your friends?"

Behind Buffy and Heidi stood Bonny and a beautiful but very stern and thin girl with her slick black hair tied around her head very tightly. There was also another tall, thin brunette that Buddy didn't recognize at first.

Buddy, to the thin brunette – "Hey, you're Jean, aren't you? The nudist."

Jean – "That would be me."

Buddy, giving her a grin – "Well, you look good in clothes too."

Joke, with a slight nod to the other girl– "Violet."

Violet, the stern raven haired girl – "Joke, you're looking very scar free today. I think I preferred your old face. It had character."

Fox, grinning – "You're Violet? The Violator?"

Violet, with a pleased but controlled smile – "Why don't we go back to my room later and find out?"

Buffy, quite seriously – "Fox, don't go there. Trust me."

Fox, laughing – "Now I really want to go there."

While that was going on, a group of twenty or so small cute blue eyed blondes wearing modern looking combat gear lined up behind Bonny and saluted.

One of blondes, with an adorable German accent – "Team Lapdog reporting for duty, Sirs."

Bonny, rolling her eyes – "You little nuts still do that?"

The same blonde, who seemed to be in charge – "Yessir."

Violet, delighted at seeing the blue eyed blonde girls – "Ooooh, Bonny, you got me the strudel poodles? You shouldn't have. They're exactly what I never knew I wanted."

The blonde in charge, now not so militarily enthusiastic - "Uh, Bonny?"

Bonny, to the blonde – "Relax. She's not in charge."

Bonny, to Violet – "In fact, Violet, You're not in charge of anything. Joke is."

Joke, blinking with surprise – "I am?"

Violet, not believing that – "She is? That's ridiculous. But I'm over four hundred years older than her. I'm one of the oldest sucks we have. Hell, I'm older than you, Bonny."

Bonny – "When Buffy let everyone free, your entire team left as soon as they could. You might be a lot of things, Violet, but you're not a people person. Now that we're dealing with volunteers, we're not going to give you another team to abuse. That's why we're putting you under Joke."

Violet growled and Bonny just smiled back.

Bonny – "You got a problem with it? Take it up Buffy."

Violet – "I don't have to take this. I can leave. We're volunteers now remember."

Bonny – "Sure. But if you leave this team, you have to leave the undercity too. We don't have to keep you either. It's possible that you could satisfy your twisted urges out in the human world but if you tried we'd hunt you down and cut your head off."

Fox – "Okay, now I really have to know. What the hell does this chick do that's against the Geneva Convention?"

Joke – "Not the time, Fox. Violet, you in or not?"

Violet, not liking it – "I'm in."

Joke – "Great. Now what's with the lapdogs?"

One of the short blondes – "We're ready to back you up, one hundred percent. Except for Heidi, because, you know, we hate her with every fiber of our being."

Heidi, explaining to Buffy – "I killed their sire. They're the secret nazi project that I told you about before."

Buddy – "Really? But they're so cute?"

The blondes all seemed pleased by Buddy's compliment and all smiled in a strangely coordinated way that looked a bit creepy.

Fox – "Hey, aren't they the girls that helped defend that Angel guy's place in LA?"

The blonde in charge – "Yes, that was us."

Joke, who was frowning at the lapdogs – "Bonny, what am I supposed to do with them?"

Bonny – "Get them to carry your junk around. I don't know. Someone thought it'd be a good idea if they backed you up. You're entire team is going to made out of eight augmented slayers. That'd not that many so your team's been given the lapdogs as some back up. Make the most of it."

Joke – "Fine. Babysitting it is."

Bonny, handing Joke a small Tyvek book – "Here's the particulars of your first mission. It's in Britainverse. They're working on something special in Britainverse. An anti-eater weapon."

Buffy – "Like the F-bombs?"

Bonny – "According to them, it'll be even better. It screws with dimensionality to separate eaters from their representatives… whatever that means. Unfortunately, the eaters seem to know about it too and they're searching for it. The higher ups want it saved. You're going to save it. Kit up, you're going out ASAP."

O-O-O-O

The sun was peeking up around the mountains in the distance and Spike knew he really should be finding some place to hide. But instead, he had his head under a dashboard of a panel van, hotwiring it for the Scoobies.

Spike, having some trouble with the wires – "Someone should get me a bloody cape."

Anya, outside the van and clutching a hockey stick - "Spike. Hurry up."

Spike, with his head under the dashboard – "What do you think I'm doing, woman?"

Anya – "Spike! They're here!"

Spike lifted his head up as he got the ignition and saw the same group of eaters who had been chasing them all morning. They were running into the shopping complex's large car park from all sides, blocking the exits.

Spike, to Anya – "Get in already."

But he didn't have to say that as Anya was already jumping in the passenger side.

Spike – "Now hold on."

Spike drove the van out of its parking spot and drove straight through the automatic sliding doors, straight into the shopping complex. He honked the horn, not because he cared about running people over but more because that would slow them down. Fortunately, it was pretty empty.

Spike – "Which way?"

Anya – "Straight."

Spike – "Straight it is."

He drove straight until he saw a sports good store with Giles flagging him down. As Spike skidded the van to a stop and tipped over a few food court chairs, the rest of the Scoobies ran out of the sports good store with a variety of different weaponry. They all piled into the van, just as the van went dead.

Anya – "Spike!"

Spike – "One sec, people."

He bent under the dashboard again and tried to get ignition again.

Spike, muttering under his breath – "Rasterfrackin' import."

While he was trying to hotwire the van, automatic gunfire struck the back of the van as the eaters had already caught up to them.

Buffy – "Drive!"

Spike, still trying to hotwire the van – "That's the plan!"

Outtaverse Xander opened up one of the back doors and aimed an M-16 out at the face eaters shooting at them. As he started emptying the civilian sized magazine at them, other people from the sports store started unloading into them too.

Spike got the van working again and as he drove on, he saw the fire support that they were getting from the sports store.

Spike – "Making friends?"

One of the vamp Dawns – "You know us, we're friendly."

Willow – "And the vampire Dawns can brainwash people."

Dawnt – "I told you, I don't like that term."

The sports store closed its anti-theft gates and gave the eaters hell has the van drove off.

Spike – "So we've got a ride. Where to now? It better be underground."

Buffy pulled a cell phone out of somewhere. It wasn't clear where because her bridesmaid dress didn't seem to have any pockets.

Buffy, dialing a number – "Trust me. It'll be underground."

Spike honked the horn as he drove the van through another pair of automatic, straight into a decent amount of sunlight.

His hands didn't catch on fire immediately but he flinched them back, off the steering wheel and he did his best to jump out of the driver's seat as he started steaming. Anya thought quick, grabbed the wheel and narrowly avoided a lamppost.

As Harmony threw a paint covered sheet over Spike, Giles moved over into the drivers seat and took the steering wheel, saving Anya from doing it.

Anya, looking back for Spike – "Spike? Are you okay?"

Spike, full of sheet muffled sarcasm - "I'm full of joy."

Harmony, covering spike with more sheets – "We really need to get him underground."

Spike – "Betsy, can't you teleport me somewhere dark?"

Betsy – "Sorry. Can't. I can feel one of those big dampeners working nearby. But at least the eaters can't teleport too."

Buffy, with her ear to her cell phone – "That'd be the one they have at Cheyenne mountain. We're half an hour's drive away. If we get there, we'll be safe.. ish. Safe-ish. Giles, turn right at the next main road. I think I know where we are."

Buffy screwed her face up and redialed her cell phone – "Why aren't they picking up?"

Future Dawn – "Maybe they're all dead."

Buffy – "They wouldn't be. They've got security like you wouldn't believe."

Future Dawn, sounding miserable – "That won't stop them. Nothing stops them."

Future Xander – "Dawn, we'll stop them. We've got all sorts of stuff we didn't have before."

VampVerse Tara, snuggling closer to Future Dawn – "Like Atlantis and spaceships and …"

Future Xander – "And aliens and laser guns. It might look bad but this is the last lap. You've seen bigger crowds of eaters than those back there. They're growing desperate."

Right then, the road in front of them exploded into flame. Giles slammed on the breaks and accidentally sent the van sliding. They hit the smoldering crater in the ground and the van tipped over and everyone inside crashed to one side.

Once it stopped, Future Xander kicked open the back door and got out with his hunting rifle ready.

Future Xander - "Come on! We've got to keep moving."

Inside the van, people had fallen on other people and almost everyone had fallen on Spike. Some of them were bleeding and few of them were ready to get moving again. The Outtaverse version of Xander got out too, pulling out a concussed Willow with him.

As Future Xander reached in the back and started pulling people out, the sky became noisy as a military transport helicopter flew slowly overhead and swung around to land on the street. As it lowered itself down, eaters jumped out the back and Future Xander's desperation reached a fever pitch. He'd been in situations like this before and knew they wouldn't all get away from this.

Then two rockets slammed into the side of the big helicopter, blowing the other side of it out. Fire blew out the pilot canopy and out the back entrance but some of the eaters on board still managed to get out without being completely overwhelmed by it. That was when Xander noticed that these eaters were actually wearing some sort of metal armor. It would reflect and absorb at least a portion of the heat involved.

As heavily armored, woman shaped soldiers fell out of the sky and fractured the road where they landed, Future Xander realized that the tables had been turned.

As eaters from the burning helicopter charged forwards, the armored slayers blurred towards them, cutting them down with unnatural speed. Both Future Xander and Future Dawn blinked with surprise. They'd never seen a group take down eaters with such apparent ease.

Two light brown and small spaceships landed on the sides of the road, setting the wet lawns slightly on fire as they did. The sides of them were already open, which is how the slayers jumped out of them. As they landed, the armored slayers started helping people out of the van and guiding them into the two small spaceships. They even helped Spike along.

They had been split up between the two ships, which was fortunate as all of them together would not have fitted in one. There was more room in the panel van Spike had stolen.

As the spaceships slowly took off vertically, two more identical versions flew over head and laid down some missile fire on the eaters driving up the street.

The female pilot to one of the spaceships - "This is Racetrack. Raptor 1 and Raptor 2 have the package. We're coming back to base. Tell the blood suckers they owe us one."

One of the Dawns – "Trust me. They know."

Buffy – "I don't know who you people are but thanks."

One of the armored slayers took her very solid looking helmet off to laugh and reveal a pretty normal looking girl.

The Slayer, with short but cute brown hair – "We're slayers, silly. When our Buffy heard that you were MIA, she sent us to go get you back."

Buffy, as they started flying out of the atmosphere - "Oh. Uh, I guess I should thank her or would that be self centered? Either way, you had some awesome moves down there."

The slayer laughed again with a wink – "Just think. In only three hundred years, you could be just like me."

The world outside the cockpit window turned from blue to black and they turned towards something that looked like a giant metal starfish but it wasn't Atlantis.

Giles – "My lord, what is that?"

Racetrack, with some distaste – "That's a Cylon Base star. Don't worry, they're friends. Supposedly."

O-O-O-O

BritainVerse.

In the sky above Cardiff, a giant floating aircraft carrier called the Valiant was still floating but one of its engines was on fire and it was tilted at such an angle that planes would probably slide off if they tried to park on it. It was obviously still manned as it was firing a large strange energy weapon at a giant green jelly like elder god. It wasn't clear what effect the energy weapon was having but the elder god didn't seem to like it.

Around the city, civilians and soldiers had formed pockets of resistance as the eaters had swarmed upon the city at disproportionately large numbers compared to the rest of their world. Fortunately, Britain had been readying itself for such an attack since their first interdimensional visitors had apprised them of the situation. But that didn't mean they were ready.

Since their initial invasion, the eater population was slowly and relatively quietly growing in most parts of the world. Not only did the eaters have laser weaponry but new types of eaters were being seen too. There was the surprisingly fast giant demon cockroach version, which wasn't as easily broken compared to the original creatures but could still chase people down quite well. There were also slow moving fish like humanoids that were seen to walk straight out of Britainverse's oceans. Almost everyone seemed surprised to discover that they had fish people living in their oceans since the Jurassic period. Perhaps more surprisingly, the fish people seemed to be almost perfectly designed for the eater process. While they were slow moving, the eater process reacted strangely to their scaled skins, creating immensely tough bullet proof armor plates that even anti-material rifles had a hard time putting a dent in.

Fortunately the fish men hadn't gained the ability to teleport yet but the variety of eaters meant the forces of darkness could deploy a variety of new tactics for different situations.

Three SAS soldiers were squatting on the second story of a multilevel carpark, keeping watch on the streets below as three fish men eaters slowly made their way towards their position.

One of the SAS, looking through binoculars – "Got three sea devils, armed with those weird pistols of theirs. They'll be on our position in, I don't know, ten minutes or so."

Another SAS, laughing quietly – "So no worries then? You know, when I pulled my under chunders on today, I never would've thought I'd be fighting demons before breakfast. Who would've thought?"

The third SAS - "Makes a change from fecking invincible aliens that our guns don't do squat on."

Second SAS - "True, makes a change."

Third SAS - "Christ, I could go for a pint right now."

SAS with the binoculars - "I could go for some bloody air support. We've got more of those buggers coming up too. Look sharp brothers. Oh hell, what is that?"

As a mixed swarm of cockroach and human eaters quickly overtook the three fish people eaters, the three SAS could clearly make out the shape of a giant, slightly minotaur shaped monster running with the crowd. It was heavily muscled, around fifteen feet high, was wielding a giant axe and even had horns. It was also wearing a loincloth despite being hairy enough to hide anything shameful.

The three SAS shared looks between themselves. For all they knew, the eaters hadn't seen them yet. As they wordlessly considered their situation, they saw a group of twenty or so short armored soldiers quietly creep up to the other end of the car park on their level, giving them a good overview of the street. At first, it seemed these new soldiers hadn't spotted them but then they all turned at once and spotting the humans.

For a few seconds as the armored soldiers sized the three SAS up and then one of them crept over to them. Then she took her helmet off to show a brightly grinning blonde girl.

Armored lapdog girl – "Hey guys. You might want to stick with us. This could get hairy."

One of the SAS, realizing that their back up was all girls – "What is this? Affirmative action? What are we supposed to do with a pile of girls?"

Outside, armored personnel carriers parked fast and troops piled out to counter the face eaters.

Someone yelling outside – "Code red! Fire at will! Fire at will."

The lapdog vamp stuck her helmet quickly back on and spun around to help her sisters as they stood up and started emptying all manner of high tech weapons into the eaters below.

Outside, as the soldiers and eaters traded fire, a small square hole appeared in the middle of a mostly empty public space and Captain Jack Harkness slowly rose out of it, as if on an elevator.

Captain Jack also had an alien gun so large that you couldn't help but think he was compensating for something.

Captain Jack, firing white hot laser death into the eaters – "How do you like that, huh?"

Despite the heavy gunfire being laid down, the eaters kept pushing forwards, even taking some of the soldiers out with their own guns. Before the eaters could get within close quarters range, grey blurs smacked into them. Eater limbs went flying and the crowd stopped as they become confronted with something they weren't ready for.

Future Buffy, wearing some fancy new armor – "That's right. You got a bad case of slayers."

The tac team pushed forwards and the eaters started pulling back, doing their best to take out the slayers with their guns but failing miserably against their new armor.

While the eaters retreated, the giant minotaur like monster charged forwards and swung his axe with surprising speed, catching one of the slayers with a glancing blow. The slayer still spun off her feet with the force and their armor was torn open.

Jack and many of the other soldiers redirected their fire to the minotaur but only seemed to be doing superficial damage. Then one of the lapdogs shot it the back of the foot with a rocket, which caused it to fall to one knee. Taking this as an opportunity, Buffy threw her cleaver like sword in a powerful sword overhead, hitting it dead in the eye. It screamed coarsely as it pulled the sword out of its eye and tossed it aside. Then she saw its eye heal within a matter of seconds.

Buffy – "Oh come on! What is this thing?"

She dove to the side and narrowly avoided getting cut clean in half by its axe. The other slayers attacked it around the legs while two jumped on its back. While that was going on, some of the soldiers changed targets back to the very real threat of the thinned eater group since they didn't want to waste bullets on their mysterious benefactors.

One of the soldiers - "Sonovabitch! How come there's always something that's immune to our weapons? Shoot the eaters instead."

Fox, hanging on the back of the minotaur – "WHAT IS THIS THING!?"

The minotaur reached back and grabbed Fox while he was hitting it around the back of the head with his sword. Then it slammed him down on the concrete so hard that parts of his armor shattered. It followed that up swinging its axe down through him so hard that it was embedded through him and at least a full foot into the concrete.

While it was bent over and trying to wrench its axe out of the ground, Captain Jack took the opportunity to charge forward and shove his very large alien weapon up the minotaur's loincloth. It made a surprisingly high pitched yelp and reared back with such force that the slayer still on his back was launched off. As it tried to frantically remove Captain Jack's supersized gun from where it was painfully lodged, everyone around the minotaur heard the gun starting to hum threateningly. As Jack grabbed some dirt, some of the other slayers followed his lead. Those who didn't were knocked off their feet as the bottom half of the minotaur exploded in a violent, meaty way.

After the red mist cleared, the several parts of the minotaur were nowhere to be seen. The head and part of its shoulders had stuck itself in a car, horns first.

With their heavy hitter gone, the eaters decided to hightail it out of there before the slayers recovered from the explosion.

Captain Jack got up a bit concussed but then smiled like an idiot covered in red demon blood. Then he saw Buddy desperately trying to wrench the giant axe of the ground to save his friend and he remembered where he was.

With the help of another slayer, Buddy pulled the axe out of the ground and out of Fox. Fox had been almost cut in half. The axe had cut from one of his shoulders down to the base of the spine.

Buddy, tightening his one of his holsters around Fox's chest – "It's gonna be okay. We'll get you home and fix you right up. Come on, say something."

Fox, coughing up blood as he talked - "Damn. I'll never get used to this war stuff. What was that thing?"

Buddy – "Okay, maybe you should talk."

Joke – "I think that was an old one. They're not all sky scraper sized. Buddy, you take care of Fox from now on. When we move, you carry him."

Buddy – "Sure."

Buffy, behind Captain Jack – "Hey studmuffin. Was an exploding particle weapon or are you just happy to see me?"

Captain Jack, with a smirk – "Perhaps a bit of both. Didn't expect to see you here. You get around, don't you?"

Buffy, with a small laugh – "Just so you know, I'm the one who's not hundreds of years old."

Right then, an attack helicopter piloted by eaters swung low on the quayside of the scene. After seeing that eaters were at the controls, Buffy pulled out what looked like a pipe bomb with a simple fold out handle and fold out spikes. Then she threw it at the helicopter. It exploded almost on impact, destroying the helicopter and causing it to sink into the sea with a splash.

Captain Jack, suitably impressed – "Different Buffy but I see you've still got some moves."

Joke, to Jack – "Hey, Harkness. You know where the package is?"

Jack – "The package?"

Joke – "We're here to get some stuff and some people. Something about a super weapon."

Jack – "Gotcha. I know what you're here for."

O-O-O-O

Jack Harkness led them into the underground torchwood base which they had been fighting over just a minute ago. Only Joke, Buffy and Heidi went down with him, leaving the others to secure the surface, tend to the wounded and torch the "dead" eaters.

Jack Harkness, as a large security door opened to reveal Torchwood – "Welcome to Torchwood, saving the world in the gayest way possible since 1879."

There were all sorts of curiosities around the room but one of the biggest had to be bus length black plastic machine with lots of red and blue flashing lights that a stringy gentleman was working on. The stringy man was wearing sneakers that didn't quite suit the rest of his clothes. Hearing Jack come back, the guy working on the machine did a double take at Jack when he saw he was covered from head to foot in blood.

Jack, cringing – "You don't want to know."

Joke – "That's the weapon we're here for?"

Jack – "That would be it."

Joke, with a sigh – "How come super weapons never fit in suitcases? We're going to need forklifts for that."

The guy working on the machine – "You can't take it. Not yet. It's not finished."

Joke – "And you are?"

The doctor, introducing himself - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. I'm the guy who made this and I'm the guy who's going to finish it in two minutes and save the world. Got a problem with that?"

Heidi – "What sort of Doctor are you?"

Doctor, back to tinkering with the machine - "Oh, I'm just an all-round walking, talking panacea for what ails you."

The fighting above started up again with renewed vigor as gunfire and explosions were heard coming through the ceiling.

Doctor, still tinkering – "Tell you what, by the time we get it to surface, it should be done. Come over here."

As the three slayers and Jack approached the machine, the Doctor pushed a large red button. The high ceiling opened up, revealing the sky. The weapon was started to slowly rise off the ground, thanks to the open elevator it and the Doctor were on. Jack and the slayers hoped on for the ride.

Joke's radio buzzed static and an urgent call came through.

One of the lapdogs – "Sir, the extraction site is no longer secure. We're being swarmed. The eaters are chasing us up the car park. We need help."

Buffy – "Uh, guys. I think we're going straight up into a swarm of eaters."

Jack – "Doctor, maybe we should stop."

Doctor, smiling in an ever so slightly disturbing way – "Oh no, this is perfect. You'll see."

As they rose out of the ground, they could see that there was indeed a swarm of eaters. The rest of the slayers were nowhere to be found, much like the human soldiers. As the eaters "saw" them, they turned and charged forwards.

That was when the doctor punched the bright blue button on the machine, causing a number of things to happen. Large pole like antennae rose out of it, releasing a strange blue energy. Faceted force fields sprung out of nowhere and disintegrated the eaters when they touched them. Also, a similar a faceted force field sprung up around the device, protecting both it and them from the eaters. Much to the slayer's confusion, all the eaters in the scene, despite not being touched by the force fields, fell to the ground lifeless.

Captain Jack – "Doctor, it worked. You genius!"

Doctor, pleased with himself – "I have my moments."

Captain Jack – "I could kiss you right now."

Doctor, backing off a little from Jack – "Please don't. I told you about that."

Joke, shrinking back from the force field surrounding them – "What just happened?"

Doctor, sticking his arm through one of the force fields – "Oh, they're harmless. They're just simple interdimensional ripples. The real question is why are they blue? In fact, why can we see them at all? That's just nutty."

Joke – "So what are they again?"

Doctor – "The eaters are remote controlled, right? If you sever their connection to whatever remote controls them, they deactivate and the connection can't be reestablished. All these ripples do is sever that connection. If it's all gone to plan, this generator should be resonating with the archangel satellite network, blanketing the entire globe."

Buffy – "Also, it's pretty."

Doctor – "It is, isn't it."

As everything seemed safe, a black robed shape floated down out of the sky and landed softly in front of them, causing the slayers to stare and feel repulsed by the revoltingly dark magic coming off him in waves.

Buffy – "What!? You're dead! I saw you die on video."

Mister Shadow, laughing deeply – "You can't believe everything you see on TV, Buffy."

Doctor, to the very scared Buffy – "Relax. He can't pass through the field or he'll lose his connection to all his drones."

Mister Shadow lifts his hands and electric arcs shoot out from the field to painfully zap him.

Doctor, to Shadow – "That goes for telekinesis too."

Mister Shadow – "So I see."

Doctor, holding up a small electronic scanner towards Mister Shadow – "Now just who are you?"

Mister Shadow – "I could ask the same thing about you. What are you doing here? You're not human."

Doctor – "You're right. I just look human, just like you."

The clouds around Mister Shadow boiled angrily and The Doctor smiled.

The Doctor – "Yes, under all that flash and pizzazz, you look human, don't you? But you don't want me to know that, do you?"

Mister Shadow – "My appearance means nothing. Much like yours."

The Doctor – "And I'm okay with that. You on the other hand, well, look at what you're wearing. You're hiding yourself under all that black. There's a term some of the kids nowadays use to describe that look."

Buffy – "Goth?"

The Doctor – "No. Less manicured, more tacky."

Buffy – "Emo?"

The Doctor – "Yes! Emo. That's you in a nutshell."

Mister Shadow – "What are you?"

The Doctor – "I'm a time lord. Now it's your turn. What are you?"

Mister Shadow – "I am the end of everything."

The Doctor, not impressed – "Really? Because as far as genocidal invasions go, we've had better."

Mister Shadow – "This device of yours won't stop me. Trying to stop me is like trying to contain a sun."

Doctor – "Actually I've done that. It's easier than…"

The Doctor stopped talking to stare at the numbers on his electronic pad. Mister Shadow seemed to find this funny, causing him to laugh.

Mister Shadow – "Find something out else about me with that?"

The Doctor – "That can't be right. That's impossible."

Mister Shadow – "You flatter me."

Jack Harkness – "What is it?"

The Doctor, lowering the pad – "He's a temporal singularity."

Jack – "That's impossible. Temporal singularities are purely theoretical. It's impossible to make one without…."

Mister Shadow, finishing Jack's sentence – "Without traveling between dimensions to bypass those tacky problems of causality? Ooh, it's so nice to meet people who know what I'm doing."

The Doctor – "You have no idea what you're doing. A temporal singularity can tear dimension apart."

Mister Shadow, laughing – "I guess I do know what I'm doing then."

The Doctor – "But it'll destroy you too."

Mister Shadow – "This conversation just got boring. I think it's time I figured out how to kill you."

The Doctor, with a determined look on his face – "How about this. You stop this madness now or I'll kill you."

Mister Shadow – "Even if you could, you know what would happen if you did."

The Doctor – "Yes. Our dimension would be destroyed. But it would save the rest."

Mister Shadow – "That's noble intent but pointless. I call your bluff."

The Doctor – "Can't say I didn't warn you."

Before the Doctor could calibrate his unusual anti-eater weapon to attack Mister Shadow, the world darkened as something ginormous appeared over head and dominated the sky.

The Doctor – "Uhh, that's not me."

Mister Shadow – "That's not me either."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis glided through the clouds above Cardiff, getting a good view of the Valiant which was now venting quite a lot of black smoke.

Tara, smirking at the Valiant – "Mine is bigger."

McKay, at one of consoles – "Oh crap. You're not going to believe this. We're detecting Mister Shadow on the ground."

Tara – "What?! Seriously? I'm not going to let him get away from me again."

O-O-O-O

On the ground, Mister Shadow and the five good guys were still looking up at Atlantis as it slowly swung upside down to target Mister Shadow.

Mister Shadow – "I hate that thing."

Heidi – "Do they know we're down here?"

Buffy, cringing – "I don't think so. Maybe we should start running."

Doctor – "Yeah, I'm good at running."

At the five good guys ran, Mister Shadow smirked under his hood.

Mister Shadow, to Atlantis- "I'm not going to let you get away from me again."

He lifted one hand towards Atlantis from which smoke flew out and spiraled around, eventually creating a gigantic lightning filled portal. A giant squid like elder god rose out of portal, pierced straight through Atlantis' shields as if they were paper and grappled the ancient city with tentacles and its beak. Towers buckled under its grip and Tara lifted them further away from the ground.

O-O-O-O

Inside Atlantis.

Tara – "What do I do?"

Weir, holding on for dear life – "Use the drones and take us away from the city."

O-O-O-O

Mister Shadow folded his arms and watched the aerial battle going on between Atlantis and the Elder god. Glowing drones flew out of Atlantis and penetrated the sides of the monster, eviscerating it but not silencing it yet. Mister Shadow had thought that particular Elder God would've been a good match for Atlantis but now he realized it was outmatched.

Mister Shadow – "It doesn't matter. You're all going to die tomorrow."

Buffy had been eavesdropping from a block down using her enhanced hearing. She realized that Mister Shadow had said that for her sake when he turned around and seemed to look her in the eyes.

Mister Shadow – "Boo."

Buffy gasped and Mister Shadow disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Buffy – "I really hate that guy."

O-O-O-O

Stay tuned for the final chapter of this series, The fall of Buffy Summers.


	76. 21e Fall of Buffy Summers

Episode 21, chapter E : The Fall of Buffy Summers

Authors note : Last chapter ever.

O-O-O-O

On sunny beach, on an island off the coast of Spain.

A giant purple tentacle covered worm shaped old one calling himself Derleth the impenetrable was having some trouble understanding the nicely tanned natives who were on vacation.

Derleth – "I don't see what the problem is. I'm invincible and powerful. Why won't you worship me again?

A young black guy, yelling up at Derleth – "Because you're not god."

Derleth – "So? I have god like powers. Like check this out."

Derleth's tail whipped up lazily as some strange mirage like energy flew off it. That energy neatly cut a long thin like straight through a nearby mountain and causing the sheep on that mountain to stampede in a cute fluffy way.

Derleth, pleased with himself – "See. I am awesome."

A female voice from the ground – "Times have changed, Derleth. A show of force won't be enough if you want them to worship you."

Derleth's brow wrinkled up as he found that sentence to make no sense at all. When he looked down at the offending voice, he was a little surprised at what he saw.

Derleth – "Hello there, little one. I don't believe I'm familiar with you."

Illyria, the voice – "It's Illyria."

Derleth coughed up a small mountain of phlegm as he laughed.

Derleth, finding this hilarious - "Illyria? Look at you. You're tiny. Insignificant. It's hard to believe that my respected rival has been brought so low."

Illyria – "We were never rivals. I just hadn't decided to kill you yet."

Derleth slammed a meaty pseudopod down dangerously close to Illyria.

Derleth, a little angry – "Don't forget your place, little one. I could crush your little insect body without even realizing it. Why are you even here?"

Illyria – "Because I want to see the look in your eyes."

Illyria noticed that the look in his eyes was one of mild confusion.

Illyria, as she readied the large high tech looking gun slung under shoulder – "Not quite what I was expecting."

She fired the gun which let out a bright green beam. Upon being struck by the beam, Derleth started screaming and shrinking at the same time. It started disintegrating too and small glowing particles broke out from his body and were pulled into Illyria's gun. Before long, the giant worm like monster was a blackened, hollow husk.

As the humans stared, Illyria opened up the now steaming gun and pulled out a large see through container containing a sparkling purple powder.

Illyria, smiling at the purple power – "Don't forget your place, little one."

O-O-O-O

Atlantis, Mess hall.

The tables in the mess hall had been pushed to the sides of the room, to make room for a wide, circular base made out of stone and covered in runes. On top of the base was a large bronze bed like altar, which the Human version of Buffy was sitting on.

She was wearing a simple blue tube top and white shorts and had two girls painting swirly spellwork on her in an occasionally ticklish way. One of them was painting the top of her feet while another was painting the back of her neck when Faith came in.

Faith – "So this is what you get into in your spare time."

Buffy – "Always with the innuendo."

Faith – "Of course."

Buffy – "They're putting a spell on me, so I won't get hurt by sex magic. They think this will allow sex magic to pass straight through me into Mister Shadow, because of that superstar spell."

Faith – "Yeah, I knew that. Umm, so has it started working yet?"

Buffy – "I don't know. I'm not getting any migraines, if that's what you're asking."

Faith – "They didn't tell you?"

One of the painters – "And ruin the surprise?"

Faith, chuckling – "Buffy, that spell won't just stop you getting headaches. If they're doing it right, it'll lesbianize you."

Buffy, laughing – "What? How?"

Faith, as the painters stopped their painting – "Well, the superstar spell stops you from liking girls, right? They're just attacking that side effect. Queen of the damned explained it all to me in lurid detail. So any minute now, I'm gonna start looking damn good."

One of the painters – "All done. Feel any different?"

Buffy mused a little and looked Faith up and down as if checking out a dress.

Buffy – "Sorry. Feel just the same as normal."

One of the painters, talking into a walky talky – "The spell is in place. Proceed with your dirty dirty plan."

Buffy straightened with a gasp

Buffy – "Oh."

One of the painters – "Head ache?"

Buffy – "Uh, not quite. I just feel … umm, it's nothing really."

Faith, smirking – "Suddenly feeling horny?"

By the look on Buffy's face, Faith might have hit that nail on the head.

Buffy, quickly denying it – "What!? No. Can we talk about something else? How about Mister Shadow?"

Faith – "Well, if this spell works, all that sexy magic sex should be funneling from your many slutty alternates, through you, into him. Hopefully he's wishing he was never born."

Buffy – "Yeah, I knew that. I meant what about the war effort? I've been getting poked, prodded and painted for the past ten hours. I want an update."

Faith, as the painters walked off to do something else – "Last I heard, the old ones have all been cleaned up."

Buffy - "Even that alien space bat in New York?"

Faith - "Especially that stupid thing. Guess it's the last lap, B. We've just got to take out the shadow and we're doing it old school style."

Buffy – "Old school style?"

Faith – "Yeah, you know. Me and you, like we used to back in the day. You set him up, I take him down."

Buffy – "I'm pretty sure back in the day, neither of us were placed on a bronze pedestal as some sort of sex weapon."

Faith – "Maybe not on you but I got around."

Buffy gasped, slumped a bit and Faith caught her before she fell off the pedestal

Faith, with clear concern – "What's wrong? Should I tell your twins to stop fooling around?"

Buffy, shaking her head – "No. I just feel a bit weird. And for some reason, my toes have gone numb."

Faith – "Right. They said this could happen."

Buffy – "What? What could happen?"

Faith – "Queen you said that you might start feeling things the other Buffys are feeling."

Buffy – "Like what?"

Faith – "You know all of your clones are having sex right now, right? That's how they're funneling sex magic through you."

Buffy, with a gasp – "Oh! You mean I might actually start feeling what they're feeling? Oh crap, wait, why am I worrying? I'm not feeling anything, you know, sexy."

Faith – "Yet."

Buffy gave her an unimpressed look.

Faith, finding this hilarious – "Give it a minute then you'll start having some sexy fun explosion time."

Buffy – "Not that it's not great how you're laughing at my fate but don't you have somewhere to be? I distinctly remember you saying something about me setting him up and you taking him down. I'm kinda doing my part, how's about yours?"

Faith – "I'm sure I've got a few minutes more of laughing to get through."

Buffy – "What have you got planned anyway?"

Faith, flippantly – "Nothing too dangerous. Might kill me. Might destroy our entire dimension. Actually, it's fifty fifty, could go either way. Nothing to worry about though."

Buffy, staring at Faith with concern and perhaps a little horror – "What are you planning?"

Faith, suddenly serious – "Look, B. He's tapped into the heart of darkness, the thing us slayers were meant to protect. There's reasons no one's meant to get their hands on that. He won't go down easy. I'm gonna do something kinda drastic and it might kill me."

Buffy – "But you've got that echo thing going on, right? Makes you kinda invincible."

Faith – "Kinda. Just kinda. Not really invincible."

Buffy – "What are you going to do?"

Faith – "You're the stick. I'm the carrot. You're sending him lots of pain. I'm gonna give him something that'll take it away. But the trap we're using, once you're in, you might not get out. It's… I won't lie, B. I'm scared. This is fricken crazy. Which is kinda why I'm here, talking to you. There's something I just have to do."

Faith reached forwards, taking Buffy's hands in her own and got within Buffy's personal space.

Faith – "This might feel a bit weird."

Then Faith kissed her. Not just a little but a lot. Faith must have caught Buffy as she was breathing in because by the way Buffy was reacting, she was suffocating.

Faith let up and Buffy gently pushed her away as she breathed hard.

Buffy - "Okay. That was confusing. It wasn't great but it was better than the last time. I just don't think I was ready for that."

Faith, perhaps a little angry – "Last time? What last time? Did you boff little vampire me?"

Buffy – "What? No! I … When you were in a coma, I sort of kissed you, just to see what it was like."

Faith, giving Buffy a weird look – "You kissed me when I was in a coma?"

Buffy, a little ashamed – "Just once. Just to see what it was like."

Faith – "Buffy, if you wanted to kiss me, you should've asked when I was awake. I don't think anyone kisses properly when they're in a coma."

Buffy – "I'll keep that in mind."

Faith – "Anyway, job done. Ta-dah."

Buffy frowned, not getting what she was talking about.

Faith – "Your hand, numb skull."

Buffy looked down at her hands and then blinked with surprise as she realized that her hand that had been heavily chewed on was now good as new.

Buffy – "How did you do that?"

Faith – "I'm sharing bodies with Xander the healing guy, remember? I just used a little of his healing touch. What? You thought I kissed you just for the hell of it? I don't think so. Anyway, that's all I came for. Should get back to work."

As Faith turned around to walk away, Buffy spun her back around and planted one on her. This time it went much smoother and with more mutual smoochings. Before too long, Buffy tried to follow Faith's mouth as it was pulled away.

Faith, smiling widely - "See, I'm not so bad, am I?"

Buffy, with heavy lidded eyes - "Oh yeah, I could definitely get used to that?"

Faith, with a hopeful smile - "Really?"

Buffy, pleasantly surprised - "Yeah. I really think I could. Wow, so that's what it's like to feel lesbian. I feel all giddy."

Faith tried not to laugh and thought she should say something but couldn't think of what.

Buffy, her heart breaking a bit - "I can't believe we'll never get a chance to do this again."

Faith – "Hey, I might survive! It's not a completely suicidal mission. I was just being a drama queen."

Buffy – "After you kill Mister Shadow, the superstar spell will stop working and you won't want to kiss me anymore. In fact, you'll hate me."

Faith – "I won't hate you…. Okay, I hate you now. Good point. This is the only time we'll get to do this."

Faith climbed onto the pedestal, trapping Buffy and smothering her with kisses. When Faith pulled herself off, Faith had tears in her eyes.

Faith, sadly – "Daaamn, you're so good."

Buffy, ashamed – "Actually, I'm probably not. It's just the spell. When the spell ends, you'll see that I'm a subpar kisser. That's what happened with Jonathan."

Faith – "Really?"

Buffy – "You should probably get off me or you'll look back on this with major regret."

Faith, getting off the pedestal with a groan – "This sucks."

Buffy, still lying down – "You took the words right out of my mouth. If it makes you feel better, you're the best kisser I've ever had, hands down."

Faith, smiling a little – "Really?"

Buffy – "Oh yeah."

Faith – "Better than Angel?"

Buffy – "Don't tell him I said this but yes, even better than Angel."

Faith – "Are you joshing me? Because Angel is pretty darn good."

Buffy half growled and half grumbled, making Faith laugh a little.

Faith – "Yeah, I should probably go. They should be ready for me now."

Faith left the room without another word, knowing that she could very easily be distracted by the lure of more Buffy action. Buffy watched her go and sighed when Faith closed the door behind her.

Buffy, staring at the ceiling – "Oh great. Now I'm starting to feel some sexy fun explosion time. Why is Faith always right?"

O-O-O-O

Faith walked into Atlantis' Gate room, where a mishmash of different technologies had been assembled together to create an absurdly powerful containment field theoretically strong enough to contain an exploding black hole. Several technology minded people were around the room. Tara, Harmony, Anya and Weir were overseeing everything from the level above.

Faith – "Is it ready?"

The Doctor, checking some readings from a large red evilly glowing coil – "The technological abomination is ready. Whether it works or not will remain to be seen."

Faith stepped onto a large glowing disc which had several large fat wires plugged into it and looked ready for anything.

Faith "It better frigging work or this will do more damage than just killing us all. Talking of which, Doctor, shouldn't you be getting back to your home dimension? If this does go wrong, the explosion might not reach you there."

The Doctor – "If it does go wrong, I might be the only one who can fix it."

Faith – "Right. Didn't think of that. Ready, Tara?"

Tara nodded and Harmony stood back as Tara summoned an immense amount of power.

Tara, her hands arcing with electricity – "You sure about this, Faith?"

Faith – "Me? I don't understand how any of this works. I'm just going with the flow."

Tara's magic cooled down and Faith frowned.

Faith – "Forget what I just said. Fire it up."

Tara took in a deep breath and the slot for sticking the scythe in popped up behind her and she placed her hands on it.

Faith grit her teeth with pain as the air around her rippled and then warped and reflected in weird ways, seemingly tearing Faith apart but not in a bloody, gory way but a surreal Dali sort of way. Before anyone could analyze it, the air seemed to solidify in a perfectly smooth reflective sphere, trapping Faith inside. As the equipment around the room hummed with activity, the technical minded people made sure everything was going to plan.

The Doctor – "Fantastic."

Zelenka – "Multidimensional containment is in place. All variables are well within the proper safety margins and everything seems to be holding."

The Doctor – "I thought fantastic summed it up nicely but whatever."

O-O-O-O

A grey lifeless moon.

Mister Shadow's throat was hoarse from screaming as he tore at the walls between realities with his mind. All around him, his remaining face eater hordes were dying because of the sex magic that was being pumped into them, through him and from the human version of Buffy. He couldn't think and was becoming desperate as his energy started to wane, until finally he felt the veil between realities buckling.

Using sheer determination more than intellect, he flung brain melting amounts of power into his task and reality gave way, creating a jagged, gaping tear in the dimensional quarantine that trapped him in. He ran through the tear with only four eaters on his tail.

When he got through the other side, he was assaulted by wet rain and a knee high pool of mud which he sank into. But as the tear sealed up, he felt sweet relief as the source of his pain was left on the other side of the dimensional quarantine. He took a moment to take stock of what happened and wonder about where he found himself.

Mister Shadow, to the eaters – "Go multiply."

With that order uttered, the eaters shambled out of the mud pools onto cobbled streets and wandered off to make more of themselves. Mister Shadow looked around the environment and something about it didn't feel right. There were rolling hills full of trees and gently curving streets lined with tall church like buildings. Despite the mud, the grime and stains, it looked fake. It looked almost manicured, even the dirty details. There were lights on in the houses and chapels but the streets were empty, despite it being daytime.

The only sound was the rain.

Mister Shadow – "Okay, what's going on?"

Faith, Xander, Dawn and Tell looked down on Mister Shadow from an Ivory Tower, some distance away.

Faith – "Huh. It worked. There's the schmuck right there."

Xander – "Of course it worked. It was my plan."

Faith – "Just because you thought it up doesn't mean it's golden."

Dawn – "Sorry, Xander. But I'm with Faith on this. This plan to trap Mister Shadow in our head is kinda nuts. Right, Tell?... Tell?"

Tell, quietly – "Like a million teardrops, its raining upon my world for the last time."

Xander – "Very poetic. Now, let's get to business before we get weepy."

Tell, a little angry – "I'm not weepy. I'm just not looking forward to losing all this. I'm not human, remember? I don't know what life is like without a pocket dimension in my head."

Dawn – "It's really not that bad."

Faith – "Yeah, we get by. Now come on, bleed the bitch."

Dawn, glaring at Faith - "For the record, I totally don't like this idea."

Xander – "Duly noted. So, Tell, you need me to do anything?"

Tell – "No. I don't need any paragon powers for this. But, uhh, Dawn, this is going to hurt. A lot."

Dawn, wincing - "I figured."

Tell placed one hand on Dawn's shoulder then plunged his other hand straight through her ribcage, into her heart. She screamed as Tell wrenched an insanely bright green light out of her chest. The light burned everything it touched in the room, consuming it.

From outside, Mister Shadow looked up at the tower was obliterated in the birth of a second sun that quickly engulfed Tell's pocket universe in cleansing blue fire.

Mister Shadow screamed but his cry of anguish would never be heard.

O-O-O-O

Queen Buffy wandered into the gate room and took up position on the overhead balconies with Anya and Weir.

Anya, trying not to snigger – "Hi, having a break from the boys?"

Queen Buffy – "Kinda. They're all spent. I knew we should've brought more."

Anya laughed with disbelief – "Oh come on. I saw all the men you brought with you. There was like a hundred of them."

Queen Buffy – "Sure but I brought ten of myself and I'm really good at this sex thing."

Weir, frowning – "But it's only been twenty minutes. How good can you be?"

Queen Buffy – "Darn good."

Anya, smiling smugly – "You used magic, didn't you?"

Queen Buffy, pouting a little – "Maybe."

Weir – "You can use magic for sex?"

Queen Buffy, groaning – "I've never been into gangbangs and honestly, most guys aren't either. Any more than two guys is plain awkward. So yeah, I used magic to suck the sexual energy out of them. Don't worry, no permanent damage done. In fact, some guys like it. Anyway, is the world going to end?"

Anya – "If it does, we've got front row seats."

Weir – "So far, nothing's changed. Maybe Mister Shadow isn't taking the bait."

Then something changed.

Jets of steam hissed out of the long glowing red coil and counters slammed back and forth as the containment field started to break down.

McKay, staring at his laptop – "What is this?! The readings don't make any sense."

The Doctor, calibrating something like mad – "This key, it's too strong. It's going to break our containment."

The mirrored containment field shattered and in its place was Faith, clutching her head. Her head rocked back as lightning shot out her eyes and burst from the veins in her arms. She screamed and it gushed out her mouth, flooding the room with noisy blue tendrils, covering the room in blinding light.

There was a loud pop and the light disappeared. The room was full of magic smoke that had broken free of various technologies around the room. It smelled like ass but at least they weren't dead.

Faith, as the things around the room fizzled and popped – "Wow. That hurt. At least I'm still alive."

Xander, getting up too – "Any crash you can walk away from, I supposed."

Dawn – "Uh, guys?"

That was when everyone in the room noticed that Xander, Faith, Dawn and Tell each had their own body. They were covered in soot but seemed okay.

Faith – "Oh snap! No more timeshares for me. Even better, we're not all dead! Fucking A!"

Anya, running over to Xander – "Xander! Are you okay?"

Xander, holding his bruised ribs – "Yeah. I'm fine."

Anya – "Great. Umm. Why are you wearing clothes?"

Xander, frowning – "Anya, I'm not … I'm not comfortable having sex in public."

Anya, rolling her eyes – "I'm just asking about your clothes. Think about it. You're wearing clothes. So is Faith and Dawn. How? Where did they come from? When you split up, did you magically make clothes out of thin air? And is this leather?"

Xander – "I think it's, eww, I think it's pleather. But can we talk about this later?"

Dawn, being helped up by a rune covered Buffy – "Holy cow. That really fricken hurt."

Human Buffy, still covered in runes – "Guys? What happened?"

Faith – "I'll tell you what happened. It worked. Dawn blew her load and killed that asshat."

Human Buffy, not quite believing this – "You got him?"

Xander – "We did, Buffy. It's over."

Human Buffy – "So, like why do I still feel all slayery? And am I still ubersexy to you all?"

Dawn tore her eyes away from Buffy's butt to groan.

Dawn – "Oh come on! This is ridiculous. We used the key. That should kill damn near anything."

Twist, holding up a traumatized looking Tell – "Actually, there are a few things they key wouldn't kill. Like plenty of Gods could survive it."

Dawn, furious – "Why didn't you mention this BEFORE I almost ended existence!?"

Twist – "I didn't think it would matter. And it still shouldn't. Even if they were a god, they'd be trapped in that dimension as it collapses. They'll be stuck there for the rest of eternity."

There was a bright but very short flash from the middle of the room where the containment field had been erected.

Twist, as if trying to comfort himself – "That was probably nothing."

Then there was another flash and everyone started to back away from the white hot glowing disc with fat steaming wires connected into it.

Doctor – "I'm picking up a massive influx of huon particles. It's an interstitial rift. Impossible."

White hot streaks opened up over the disc as the technological minded people trying to fix the containment system.

Weir – "Can we contain it?"

McKay – "No way. Everything's fried."

Queen Buffy – "Whatever's making that portal is going to come through. Twist, you said a God could survive the key. What else could?"

Twist – "Only one thing springs to mind and - oh god, I can feel him. I don't believe it."

Queen Buffy – "What is it!?"

Twist, looking very scared – "It's a devil."

Hands reaching out from the portal, pushing it wider until a blackened figure fell out and the glaring white portal disappeared. The surprisingly small figure didn't move at first but then slowly rose up off the ground to address the rest of the room. They could see him quite clearly as most of his cloak had been burnt off.

Mister Shadow, who looked just like Tell and Twist – "Look upon me and despair. For I am chaos!"

Tell, angry and perhaps a little annoyed - "What's that? You're an ass? Sure, I'll believe that."

Mister Shadow, without the booming scary voice – "Tell?! Oh, uh, hi. Imagine meeting you here. And you brought Twist. Look at us, would you. It's like a family reunion."

Twist, having trouble believing this – "You're an echo? The big bad is an echo?"

Mister Shadow, smirking – "And you're a pervert. I remember you. You were fun."

Faith – "I don't get it. How can Mister Shadow be an echo? I thought he was like a demon with a butterfly tattoo on his forehead."

Mister Shadow – "Actually, I put the butterfly on my butt too, in the same place your Buffy has hers. Wanna see?"

Twist – "Who are you? I don't remember you."

Tell – "Is that Scales?"

Mister Shadow, grinning – "Scales. I haven't heard that name in so long. I've been called so many different things since the chaos wars ended."

Tell – "Scales!? What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Mister Shadow, as if Tell was an idiot – "My job. We're kinda trying to kill humanity, remember? It has something to do with God telling us to take care of these hairless apes. Did you know that they're around 65 percent water? Poke a few holes in them and they leak everywhere, making a mess and stinking up the place. They're smelly water bags on legs. I don't see the appeal."

Bang!

A bullet passed through Mister Shadow's forehead, making a surprisingly clean entry wound that sealed up in under a second. Mister Shadow frowned at McKay who had just shot him with a pistol.

Mister Shadow, to McKay – "The grown ups are having a conversation here."

Mister Shadow flicked his wrist at McKay and the vampire was thrown sideways, out of the room and down a staircase. It also silenced almost everyone in the room quite effectively.

Mister Shadow – "Now where was I?"

Human Buffy – "Spouting hate about humanity?"

Mister Shadow – "Riiight. Yeah, I hate them. It's not even their fault that I hate them. It's their situation. They're just so pathetic. They live such horrible desperate guilt ridden lives. I'm not just killing them because I think they're disgusting but to put them out of their misery. It's actually humane when you think about it."

Dawn – "Humane?! You're killing billions of people."

Mister Shadow, trying to see what her point was – "Well, yeah. It's kinda hard to humanely kill people without, you know, killing them. Wait, why am I even talking to you?"

Mister Shadow flicked her wrist at Dawn and her neck snapped with a loud crunching sound.

Twist – "Can you stop doing that? Seriously. You're worse than my girlfriend."

Tell – "Look, Scales, since you seem to have us at your mercy. Why don't you explain everything, for old times sake? Like what's the whole tattoo thing with Buffy?"

Mister Shadow – "Sure. Why not. For old times sake. I'm aware how you and this Dawn girl had merged together. The same thing happened with me. Except, instead of merging with a human, I merged with an old one. It gave me a very unique perspective on things. Curiously, it also let me slip into the interregnum, the space between dimensions, where plenty of other old ones are still hiding. In the interregnum, I lived outside of time. I could see existence as it truly was. It was truly frightening."

Twist – "I've heard that."

Mister Shadow – "So, anyway. I noticed that if I could manipulate certain events, I could change the entirety of existence. Not just changing the history of one dimension but all of them. It's rather complicated and deals mostly with interdimensional travelers and gods but let's just say killing certain dimensions helps my plans."

Tell – "Evil plans."

Mister Shadow – "Of course."

Tell – "Okay, that barely makes sense but what about Buffy?"

Mister Shadow – "Oh. That part is simple. It's an ordinary, everyday superstar spell. By wearing a tattoo, she lives to her full potential while a much greater amount of negative attributes is gifted to a monster wearing the same tattoo. She's the superstar, I'm the monster. The main problem with this spell is timing. I had to time it so she got the tattoo just before getting called, otherwise she would've get called for real and the spell wouldn't have done diddly squat. But for any being living beyond time, it wasn't too hard. The powers I get from that spell are really useful. Without them, I'm not that much tougher than any other echo. I actually do this spell every time I invade a dimension. It's really useful."

Tell – "You've done this before?"

Mister Shadow, laughing – "I've been doing this since the chaos wars ended."

Twist – "Really? So then I don't think we'll be able to persuade you not to kill us all?"

Mister Shadow – "Actually, even if I wanted to, I probably couldn't save you. The eaters are all dead and the quarantine is melting as we speak. Once it breaks, it's dying time."

The Doctor – "Why?"

Mister Shadow – "Oh, hello you. Time lord, isn't it? Well, you might be one of the few who understands this. As I'm sure you're aware, every dimension has defense mechanisms to deal with paradoxes. And since I've knotted your timelines up like a pretzel, those defenses are going to kill everyone and everything. In your world, Britain world I believe they're calling it, you've got these things called reapers. Flying gargoyle like creatures that form out of midair and kill indiscriminately. I actually quite like them. Maybe I'll get one as a pet."

Buffy – "What paradoxes are you talking about?"

Mister Shadow – "A few revolve around you. Particularly your undead alternates. It's just not normal for someone to turn the future version of themselves. Plus, there's also that thing about how her childe turned a pre-reincarnated version of herself. It's a play on the old grandpa paradox. It's also makes for really crappy stories. Actually, the whole slayer vampire thing was my doing too. Ordinarily, vampires can't turn slayers. It's biologically impossible. In fact, if you actually could kill me, all the slayer vampire system would unravel and your vampire twins would cease to exist."

Queen Buffy – "For the record, we're not vampires. We're succubae."

Mister Shadow, smirking – "And that makes it better somehow? Hmm. What else can I monologue about? Oh yes, the eaters. I don't normally use face eaters to do my dirty work. Zombies work so much better. I just couldn't get the recipe right this time for some reason so I thought I'd try something different."

Queen Buffy – "You know what? I really want to kill you."

Mister Shadow, looking at her oddly – "Didn't you just hear the part where I said if you managed to kill me, you'd cease to exist?"

Queen Buffy – "You could be bluffing."

Mister Shadow – "I'm not. I don't care enough to bluff."

Queen Buffy – "Then…you know what? I don't care. I'm going to tear your face off, see how you like it."

Queen Buffy clicked her fingers and plumes of smoke billowed up from the floor around the gateroom. In a flash, undead slayers pounced at Mister Shadow. He held his hands up and laughed as he telekinetically flung them around the room like rag dolls.

Tell, to Tara – "Tara. You remember that thing I told you never to do around me?"

Tara – "The lightning thing?"

Tell – "Yeah. That. Hit him with it."

Tara held her hands out towards Mister Shadow and lightning shot out of them, striking a force field that Mister Shadow hastily erected.

Mister Shadow, shocked – "What the hell!? How did that bitch do that?! What is she?"

Tell – "Change of plans, Tara. Hit me instead. Now!"

In the next second, several things happened.

Tell held his hands out and caught in them a few bolts of lightning that Tara shot at him. Mister Shadow held his hands out towards Tara and violently broke her neck. Tell spun with the lightning he was shot with and his hands started glowing brightly blue as he broke through Mister Shadow's force field and shoved one of his hands through Mister Shadow's gut, reached up and grabbed his heart.

The look of fear on Mister Shadow's face was unmistakable.

Mister Shadow, as his chest started to glow – "Tell! What have you done!? You've killed both of us, you fucking idiot! That magic is lethal to us."

Tell, with a look of determination on his face – "I know! We can finish this fight in hell."

Mister Shadow screamed as the blue glow flowed out from his chest, into his eyes and out his mouth. Tell wasn't immune either, as it crept up his arms.

The undead slayers around the room that were still conscious screamed and then were gone, disappearing as if they were mirages. Tara went too.

Then the screaming stopped but Mister Shadow remained, brightly glowing but seemingly frozen in place.

Tell slowly extracted himself from Mister Shadow and stood back, frowning at his glowing arms.

Faith – "Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?"

Anya – "Yeah?"

Tell – "Hey, don't look at me. I don't know what's going on."

Someone that looked just like Antonio Banderas, with a sensual Spanish accent - "I believe the literal term is Deus ex machina."

The absurdly tanned guy next to him – "I've always hated that plot device. God from a machine? God doesn't come from machines. It's absurd."

Tell, staring – "Oh crap."

Twist, staring too – "That's something I never thought I'd see."

Faith – "Someone wanna fill a girl in?"

Dawn, staring too – "That's the devil."

Buffy – "Seriously? The real Devil?"

Dawn – "Yes! He's the devil, the mascot of evil himself."

Buffy – "Antonio Banderas is the devil?"

The absurdly tanned guy in a suit – "Aww, that's cute. Little Buffy thinks you're the devil."

Antonio Banderas lookalike, playfully – "It could happen."

Dawn, rolling her eyes at Buffy – "No. The guy with the third degree tan is the devil. Antonio Banderas is Israfel… I think."

Twist – "No, that's Israfel. He's an arch angel."

Buffy stared at the surprisingly mundane spectacle in front of her as Anya preened herself a little.

Tell – "Oh, right. You guys froze time, didn't you?"

The Devil – "Of course we did."

Tell – "Not that I'm not enjoying stretching out the last second of my time on earth but what's this about?"

The Devil – "It's nothing really. Me and trumpet boy thought that things could get a little messy if we let the next few seconds play out."

Tell, squinting at the Devill – "And you care?"

The Devil – "Normally, no. It's just… when you killed Mister Shadow, you'll release the key."

Tell – "Huh? What do you mean? He absorbed the key when we released it? Seriously?"

The Devil – "Bingo. Which means a very big boom."

Tell, to Israfel – "Okay, why is he caring all of a sudden? I know I haven't seen any of you guys in a while but what's the deal?"

The Devil – "I don't care that everyone's going to die. I just don't want them all to die in the same second. It puts a strain on Hell. Every time one of those keys goes off, we get flooded with new inmates. It's not pretty."

Israfel – "I always looked forwards to such occasions. It's nice to see Lucifer sweat."

The Devil, insulted by that – "I don't sweat. Not ever."

The Devil, counting on his fingers – "But every time a key goes kablooey, we get riots and jail breaks and the hired help form unions and it's not good for my blood pressure."

The Doctor, skeptically – "Excuse me but you're the actual devil? Like the real devil?"

The Devil, sighing – "Yes, of course I am. Who else would look this good? I swear, mortals are truly stupid."

Israfel – "You think you've got it bad? People keep asking for my autograph."

The Devil, wincing – "That's because you look like Antonio Banderas, you idiot. You're one of the most powerful beings in existence so why don't you change your shape? I do it all the time. It's fun."

Israfel – "But I'd never improve on this perfection."

Anya, to Israfel – "That shape does look very good on you."

Israfel, absurdly suavely – "Why thank you, senorita."

Tell – "Back to business, you're here to stop what's about to happen? How? You're going to turn back time?"

Lucifer – "I suggested that but Israfel didn't want to give Monsieur Shadow another chance to kill you all."

Israfel – "I'm nice like that."

Tell – "So what are you going to do?"

Israfel, hemming a little – "We thought we could ignore a few basic rules of causality and defy reality."

Twist – "Wait, aren't you Angels not supposed to do that? I think I remember hearing about that."

Lucifer – "Which is where I come in. Those rules don't apply to me anymore."

Israfel – "Lucy is right. Those rules don't necessarily apply."

Faith – "So you two are going to fix this mess we're in? Sweet."

Tell, skeptically – "Wait. Hold on a second. What's really going on?"

Faith – "Tell, don't jinx this."

Tell – "Jinx what? This isn't normal activity for angels at all. Why would they be talking to us about this?"

Twist – "Tell's got a point. They're playing an angle. Israfel hates Lucifer."

Israfel – "Hate is a strong word. Strongly oppose is more appropriate."

Lucifer, acting insulted – "But I hate you. All these years, you haven't been reciprocating my feelings? I feel used and dirty."

Tell – "Regardless, this is weird. Lucifer wouldn't be caught dead being seen dishing out some divine intervention and Israfel doesn't care for the glory."

Lucifer – "Maybe I just wanted to catch up with my kids."

Tell – "Oh please. Look who you're talking to. You're the absentee father from hell. Literally."

Lucifer – "I know I have a few child support bills piling up but I still care. After all, we had dinner just the other day."

Tell – "What? No we weren't. You must have me confused with one of your other clones."

Lucifer – "No, I remember it quite clearly. It was in Vienna. We had boar and you introduced me to this very nice blonde girl with a superb body."

Tell, appalled – "Oh my god. That was over four hundred years ago not the other day. Also, that wasn't pleasant. That was weird and uncomfortable."

Lucifer, his brow pouting a little – "I thought it was some nice family time."

Twist – "Tell is right. What's going on?"

Lucifer, to Israfel – "Do you want to tell them?"

Israfel – "There is a slight hiccup with divine intervention in this case. Due to extenuating circumstances, we cannot move forward without the express permission of everyone in the room."

Faith – "You want permission? Go ahead. Fix it."

Others voiced their permission but Tell folded his arms and squinted at the two supremely powerful beings in front of them as if they were insects.

Tell – "What aren't you telling us?"

Twist – "Tell, maybe you shouldn't push your luck here."

Tell – "Twist, shut it. They are totally not telling us something."

Israfel – "Of course. I don't go around giving out divine knowledge willy nilly and Lucifer, well, Lucifer isn't a giver."

Tell – "You need unanimous permission, don't you? So tell me what's going on or you won't get mine."

Israfel – "For everything to move forward smoothly, you have to die."

Tell – "Oh. Is that all? I sort of had that planned anyway."

Twist – "Wait, can't we skip that?"

Israfel – "I'm afraid not. Tara really gave him a good belt. He's dead."

Tell, squinting – "Wait, that's not it."

Lucifer – "No, that's pretty much it. You're dead and going to hell. Thanks to some obscure treaty signed at the end of the chaos wars, all of my echoes are sent directly to hell upon death."

Tell – "I know about that treaty but there's something else going on here."

Israfel – "We'll be turning Dawn, Faith and Xander back to human. Also, Xander will lose his Paragon powers."

Xander, disappointed – "Aww. I still didn't find out everything I could do with those."

Israfel – "I'm sorry but they're just too dangerous. But that's all we're doing, honest."

Tell tapped his foot a few times then smirked.

Tell – "I've got you by the balls, don't I?"

Lucifer – "I don't see how. If we don't get your permission, you'll destroy this dimension and a few others and end up in hell where I'll tear you a new one. If we get your permission, you'll still die but I might be nicer to you."

Tell – "Might be? Not good enough."

Lucifer, getting a weird look from Israfel – "Okay. I promise that I will be nice."

Tell – "Interesting but… no."

Lucifer, turning a little scary – "No? No one says no to me."

Tell – "How about this? I die and I get my very own piece of hell."

Lucifer – "Excuse me?"

Tell – "Hard of hearing in your old age? I said I wanted a piece of hell. I want to be a devil, just like my old man. I'll be a chip off the old block."

Lucifer – "I don't think you understand how this works. No one owns hell except me."

Israfel – "If you want to get technical, you still would be owning it. He's a clone of you after all."

Tell – "What Israfel said."

Israfel – "And haven't you been complaining about your workload?"

Lucifer – "I don't think he's got what it takes."

Israfel – "He's got brass gahones just for standing up to you. How bad could it be? He fails, lets some inmates free and then you have fun watching him to go catch them. I know you enjoy that sort of thing."

Lucifer – "That is true. It's always fun."

Lucifer thought this over for a few seconds then finally nodded.

Lucifer – "Fine. I agree. If only for the ensuing amusing disaster."

Israfel – "Great. Let's do this."

Time resumed and Tell screamed as blue energy coursed through him, making him glow brightly along with Mister Shadow, until it consumed them both and left no trace.

Lucifer, frowning - "I've seen enough."

In a blink of lightning, Lucifer was gone, leaving Israfel behind.

Buffy wavered and fell to her knees as she felt her supernatural strength disappear.

Xander, helping her back onto her feet – "Buffy?"

Buffy – "I'm okay. I just feel weak. I guess I don't have slayer powers anymore."

Israfel – "I'm afraid you don't. But don't worry. You've got a very bright future to look forward to."

Anya, to Israfel – "Could you say My name is Inigo Montoya, You killed my Father. Prepare to Die?"

Israfel, with his thickest accent – "My name is Inigo Montoya, You killed my Father. Prepare to Die."

Anya squealed with delight, bringing a smile to Israfel's face.

Xander – "Anya, maybe we shouldn't take anymore of his time up. I'm sure he's got places to be."

Israfel, checking his watch – "It's okay, really. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

The area where Mister Shadow died crackled with energy and then flashed with streaks of light as a tear between dimensions opened up.

Twist – "Oh right. You're here to stop that?.... right?'

Israfel, laughing – "Stop it? Why would I do that? This is part of the plan."

Twist gave Israfel a blank stare as figures climbed out of the portal, all of them covered in steaming black oil. A surprisingly large amount of them clawed their way out until finally, the portal closed and the figures slowly picked themselves up off the floor with groans and moans.

An echo, cricking his neck – "I am so glad that's over with."

Another echo – "Yeah. That was stupid."

There were other figures besides echoes though and many of them seemed very surprised to find Israfel standing there waiting for them.

One of the echoes didn't seem a bit surprised and gave Israfel a wide grin.

Israfel – "Hello Immortal."

Immortal, an echo – "Hey Izzy. It's been a long time but I guess it all worked out?"

Israfel – "Everything worked out exactly as planned."

Immortal – "Good to hear. So who got the prize?"

Israfel – "Tell."

Immortal – "Tell? Hmm. Not who I would've picked but good for him. I'm sure he'll make a nice devil."

Israfel – "He can only be an improvement."

Twist – "What's going on?"

Immmortal – "Twist?! Wow. You look good. You must be taking care of yourself."

Twist – "No really, what's going on?"

Immortal – "Long story short, this whole mess with Mister Shadow was just an angelic conspiracy to get an echo into a place of power in hell."

Buffy – "What?"

Immortal – "It's been in the works for over three thousand years. We had to collect the right dimensions together, give Mister Shadow the right opportunities and make the right situations occur. I even created the Succubae which would counter the eaters."

Buffy – "You? You were behind all this? You killed billions of people and caused untold suffering."

Israfel – "That was going to happen anyway. I thought it would be good if we could use that to our advantage."

Immortal – "And Israfel has never led me astray before... except for that one time but looking back at it, it was majorly funny."

Buffy – "But why?"

Israfel – "Most people don't know this but there's a very quiet war being waged against Hell. All the pain and misery the eaters have caused in your world does not even compare to the infinite torment found in hell. It never used to be that way. It used to be a place of quiet contemplation until the Devil made it his personal playpen. Anyhow, now I have places to be. All of you, play nice now."

Israfel glowed white and then softly disappeared, leaving a large swarm of echoes and minor gods behind.

Faith, looking very tired – "So, that guy was the devil?"

Twist – "Yup."

Faith - "I was expecting more."

The Immortal, rolling his eyes – "Faith, he set in play the largest conspiracy and largest war that ever was. The amount of pain and misery he has wrought upon existence is far beyond human comprehension. And yes, he might rule hell with an orifice penetrating spiked glove but he's still just a guy. That's all he ever was and all he will ever be. When you look past that superficial veneer, he's ordinary."

Twist – "Though, I really do like that superficial veneer. It gets me laid…. I think I'll go mingle now."

Faith, slumping down on the stairs – "Fine. Go."

Buffy sat down next to her and looked just as tired.

Buffy - "That was really anticlimactic somehow."

Faith – "Expecting more splosions?"

Buffy – "Maybe. I mean, it had everything. High tech gadgetry, magic, an archangel and the devil, all my alternates dying… actually that part kinda sucked."

Faith – "Yeah. Hey, is it weird that I always knew the devil would be a white guy?"

Buffy shrugged weakly. It seemed like there was only one thing left to say.

Buffy – "I want to go home."

O-O-O-O

The journey back to Sunnydale took quite a long time and Buffy had fallen asleep against her mother, in the SGC owned humvee they were getting a lift in. She left the demons and gods and alien doctors behind on Atlantis as she wasn't part of their world any more. Joyce gently woke her up and the two Summers women got out of the humvee, gave their thanks to the driver and walked up to their porch. Buffy's entire body ached and the calloused skin of her hands felt like leather gloves when she closed them around the door handle to close it.

Joyce – "Is it really over?"

Buffy – "Yes, it's over. Really over."

Joyce – "What about your vampire twins? You don't think they're going to be any trouble, do you?"

Buffy – "No. They… They went back home, just like they said they would."

Joyce, jokingly – "Oh. I would've liked to have seen them again. I thought vampire you was fun. She wasn't a stick in the mud like someone I know."

Buffy smiled weakly.

Joyce – "Do you want something to eat? I'm going to make something for myself."

Buffy, slowly climbing the stairs – "No. I think I'll just go to bed. I'm tired."

Joyce – "I can understand that. Umm, goodnight then."

Buffy – "Good night."

As Buffy climbed the stairs, her legs felt like they were made out of lead and she was already breathing hard. She couldn't believe it but she must be out of shape. Then there was a knock at the door, giving her a perfect excuse to stop climbing and turn back to the door.

Joyce came out and saved Buffy from opening the door and revealing Faith on the other side.

Faith – "Hey Missus S. Just came to talk to B."

Joyce, opening the door for Faith – "Of course, do you want any coffee?"

Faith shook her head – "Nah. Got some starbucks on the way over."

Faith looked up the stairs at Buffy who she had to admit looked like crap.

Buffy, after some indecision – "Let's take this in my bedroom."

Buffy plodded up the last few steps and made her way into her bedroom, letting Faith close the door behind her.

Buffy, sitting down on the bed – "Hope you're not here to kill me. Because I doubt I'll be much of a challenge."

Faith, sitting down on the bed too – "Wouldn't be so sure about that."

Buffy frowned and noticed that Faith didn't look like her usual self. Her hair looked flatter, not to mention her chesticles. She didn't radiate strength and wild carnal energy. Instead, she looked tiny.

Faith pointed to the swirly tribal tattoo on her arm.

Buffy, staring – "No way."

Faith – "Yes way. Same goddamned thing happened to me too. I guess I was his back up incase you died."

Buffy – "So we were both fake?"

Faith – "Fraid so. We can still have fights to the death if you want but they'd be that impressive."

Buffy groaned – "This is horrible. It's bad enough that it happened to me but he poached your slayer stuff too? What are we going to do? We'll probably turn into old cat ladies who spend all day reminiscing about my glory days."

Faith, cringing – "I'm more of a dog person. But I'll miss making all those horrible puns."

Buffy – "Oh please. My puns were worse than yours. But seriously, I can see it now. I'll be sitting on my sofa, surrounded by cats, telling my cats about how I had it all. Bouncy hair, really tall boyfriends, lots of friends secretly wanting to have sex with me."

Faith, trying to make Buffy feel better – "You could still have some of those things without slayer powers."

Buffy – "And pigs will fly. Wait, I've got it! I could write my memoirs, no, wait, no one would believe them. Suppose I could sell them as fiction."

Faith - "You could always become an actress. It's not like they need any special skills."

Buffy - "What? no way. I totally not hot enough for that. Though, I think you've got what it takes."

Faith, snorting - "Porn actress maybe but anything else? Nah. Not really that good at the whole acting thing."

Buffy – "Though, it's not like we need to worry about that for a while. I just want to vege out for a while. Maybe get a tan."

Faith, nodding slightly - "Sure. I can get behind that as long I don't go back to flipping burgers"

Buffy – "You know, one of my alternates flipped burgers for a living."

Faith – "Kinda makes me feel better."

Buffy - "She flipped burgers while also being the slayer."

Faith, cringing - "Really? Damn. That just sucks every which way. I'd want to kill myself after that."

Buffy – "Wait, I just figured something out. I'm not a slayer anymore, you're not a slayer, Harmony was erased from existence with all the other slayer vamps, so that only leaves…"

Faith – "Yeah, Kennedy. I know."

Buffy – "God save us all."

Faith – "I will say this though. It'll probably be easier for her than it was for us. If she gets in a real mess, she can call in the army. And there's Spike. He's infatuated with her now."

Buffy – "Really?"

Faith – "Yeah, without us tagteaming her with our superstar spells, she's kinda awesome."

Buffy – "Really? Kennedy? Wow, never would've figured that."

Faith, draping her arm across Buffy's back – "I think she'll be fine."

Buffy – "Yeah. I guess."

As Faith leaned in and kissed Buffy, she lost all thoughts of the slayer and went about living her new life.

O-O-O-O

Three weeks later.

Buffy couldn't help but feel guilty she watched Kennedy's coffin get lowered into the ground. She had only died the night before and was being buried in the get-them-buried-as-soon-as-possible tradition that Sunnydale followed quite rigorously. Next to Buffy, Faith was quietly crying, as were many of the Scoobies that she hadn't seen since Atlantis. Her old watcher, Michael Armitage was there too, along with Giles.

As the funeral ceremony ended, Faith and Buffy turned away and started leaving with Joyce when Dawn and Willow caught up with them.

Willow – "Hey Buffy. It's been a while."

Buffy, weakly – "Yeah, well, you're living in Nevada now. How's the SGC treating you both?"

Willow – "Good."

Dawn, nodding in a so-so way – "Good."

Willow – "So anyway, we thought we could catch up. Maybe over a coffee?"

Joyce – "How about dinner?"

Dawn – "That'd be great. I'm starving."

Willow – "I think Dawn's going through another growth spurt."

Dawn – "Hopefully in this one, I get boobage."

Willow – "You've already got more than me. Don't get greedy."

O-O-O-O

Later that night, at the Summers residence.

Time had moved quickly as the old friends talked about old times and ate a decent home cooked meal. After some time, Joyce had gotten up to get ready for a prior engagement, leaving Buffy, Faith, Willow and Dawn at the table to talk amongst themselves.

Buffy – "So Dawn, what sort of work are you doing for the SGC?"

Dawn – "Research and translation. I still remember most of the stuff from Tell's head so I know all sorts of weird languages and things. And I help out Willow sometimes too. The money is really good too."

Willow, a little embarrassed – "Absurdly good. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all that money. I'm used to being all frugal."

Dawn, pleased with herself – "Plus, we're rooming together. Even more money saveage."

Buffy – "Uhh, wait, you and Willow…?"

Dawn, with a shrug – "Only occasionally."

Willow, with a gasp – "Dawn!"

Dawn – "What? They can't throw stones. It's not like Buffy's not totally doing Faith."

Willow, blinking with surprise – "Really?"

Buffy – "I was trying to find a way to work it into the conversation."

Faith, chuckling – "And then Dawn happened. Nice."

Joyce, by the door – "I'll be back later, try not to burn the house down while I'm gone."

Faith – "No promises."

Buffy – "Bye mom."

The two ex-slayers watched Joyce leave and then turned around back to Dawn and Willow with serious looks in their eyes.

Faith – "Okay, fess up, Red. Why was Kennedy in Sunnydale and what killed her?"

Willow, taken back by this – "We-We don't know."

Dawn – "And even if we did, why would we tell you? Knowing you two, you'd probably try to go out and kill it."

Buffy, trying to downplay that – "What? No…. okay maybe. But seriously, what's going on?"

Willow – "We don't know and that's the truth. A few days ago, Kennedy got a vision about -"

Faith, cutting Willow off – "She get visions?"

Willow – "Yes, she got visions."

Faith – "How come I never got visions?"

Willow – "Because you suck? How should I know? Anyway, she got a vision about vampires being in Sunnydale, she phoned up, asking us if we could scry any there. We told her no, she and Spike went to check it out anyway. That's the last we heard from her. Then she wound up dead and Spike's nowhere to be seen."

Buffy – "I don't get it. Vampires in Sunnydale? How is that vision worthy?"

Dawn – "You don't know?"

Buffy – "Don't know what?"

Dawn – "Vampires have kind of gone extinct."

Buffy – "What are you do mean extinct?"

Faith – "That's when they're all dead, isn't it?"

Dawn – "Those crazy alternate slayers did it. Remember when they killed all the vampires in Sunnydale? Well, they did the same to LA when they took out Wolfram and Hart."

Buffy – "They did? I don't remember them doing that."

Willow – "We only figured it out after Mister Shadow died and everything calmed down. They had been sending secret teams into all our dimensions to wipe out the vampire populations. They hit all the hellmouths and almost all major cities. The watchers council worked with the SGC and Kennedy to finish them off just before Kennedy got her vision."

Faith – "Not that it's not cool but why would those slayer vampires do that?"

Dawn – "Probably to take them out of the equation. Also, they had that slayer thing going on."

Buffy – "Oh yeah, I remember that."

Willow – "The only vampires we know about that are still alive are Spike, Angel and Dracula."

Faith – "Dracula?"

Buffy – "It makes sense. He's stake proof."

Willow – "It's not that. Apparently Queen Buffy used to date him in her dimension and didn't feel right about killing him."

Buffy – "All I want to know is, should we pack up and leave Sunnydale? Is there going to be an apocalypse we should know about?"

Dawn – "I'd recommend leaving anyway. It's… you know, Sunnydale."

Faith – "Screw that. I wanna help the good fight. Even if it's research."

Willow – "Faith reading? That's a definite sign of the apocalypse. Someone find the new slayer quick."

Faith – "You think you're so smart, don't you?"

Willow – "Compared to you, sure."

Faith – "I bet you look at us and think we're just ex-slayers, right? But nah, we can do stuff. I've been checking up on slayer stuff. Even worked out how to get our powers back."

Willow blinked in surprise as Buffy groaned.

Buffy – "That won't work, Faith."

Willow – "What won't work?"

Faith – "It involves sex."

Dawn, laughing – "Faith has been reading up on sex magic? I can totally see that."

Faith – "It aint sex magic. It's sex AND magic. Completely different."

Willow, laughing a little too – "Okay, shoot. How would sex give you back your slayer powers?"

Faith – "It's simple. Remember how I gave Xander those paragon powers when I boinked him? If the current slayer boinked us two, she'd give us our slayer mojo stuff back too."

Dawn, laughing out loud – "That's your plan?"

Willow, trying not to laugh – "You're forgetting one important thing. That only worked because you were evil at the time. Remember?"

Faith – "That's easily solved too. We just have evil sex."

Willow – "And what's evil sex?"

Faith – "It's like the sex you probably have except fun."

Dawn, insulted – "Hey! Willow has fun sex."

Faith, laughing – "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, butterscotch."

Dawn – "No, really. She's really good at sex. She's actually a lot like you in bed."

Both Willow and Faith stared at Dawn like she had just grown another head.

Willow – "Are you trying to defend me here? Because you're not doing a very good job."

Buffy – "Actually, I can sort of see that. They kiss differently though."

Dawn, nodding – "A little different, yeah."

Faith – "You take that back, Dawn. I know I'm better than her."

Willow – "How do you figure that? Unless I'm mistaken, you've never had sex with me before."

Faith – "Yeah but I do have a few really awkward memories from Xander when you and him were cheating together. You're pathetic."

Willow, standing up from her chair – "Hey! That's uncalled for."

Faith, standing up too and smirking – "What'cha gonna do, red? Play footsies with me?"

Buffy – "Faith, let's keep this civil."

Willow – "Yeah Faith. You're not a slayer anymore, remember. You can't push everyone around."

Faith, getting in Willow's face – "I can still take you, bitch."

Dawn, still sitting down – "Jesus Christ. You two should get a room. Hey, actually, great idea."

Faith, frowning at Dawn – "What?"

Dawn, excited – "You two should totally kiss!"

Willow – "What!?"

Dawn – "Come on. After all the stuff we've been through, you two are still going at it? Can anyone say unresolved sexual tension?"

Faith – "No, it's just unresolved wanting to choke a bitch."

Buffy, smirking – "I think Dawn might be onto something. You used to want to kill me too, remember?"

Faith – "That's totally different."

Dawn – "How's this? You two either kiss or you get no action from us tonight?"

Willow – "Dawn?!"

Dawn – "My body, my choice."

Buffy, laughing – "What she said."

Faith – "This is blackmail."

Dawn – "Think of it like conflict resolution. I'm quite sure you'll both like each other a lot more after kissing."

Willow – "And what if we don't? That'd just be really awkward and Faith will never let me hear the end of it."

Dawn – "If kissing doesn't work, I guess we'd have to move on to angry sex."

Faith, rolling her eyes – "Fine, let's do this. It'll be a laugh, Red. But those two have to kiss first."

Buffy – "What?!"

Both Buffy and Dawn didn't seem too enthusiastic about this.

Faith – "Something wrong?"

Buffy – "But we get along fine."

Faith – "Come on, B, do something stupid for once."

Buffy rolled her eyes then gently leaned towards Dawn. The two ex-sisters kissed in a relatively chaste, business like fashion while their girlfriends watched. When they pulled back, neither knew what to say at first.

Dawn, as if talking about the weather – "You have quite a nice mouth. Good, umm, good technique."

Buffy – "Uh, thanks. You too. You've got really soft lips. It makes a change from Faith."

Dawn, snorting – "Yeah, she can be a bit rough. Talking of which, Faith, be gentle. Don't bruise my girlfriend or I'll kick your ass."

Willow groaned as her and Faith leaned in closer.

Willow – "I am totally going to regret this."

Buffy and Dawn waited for their girlfriends to kiss but it didn't look like it was going to happen. Neither wanted to make the first move. They both slowly, inch by inch, moved closer until their lips pressed together gently. Then they started kissing more earnestly, doing their best to capture the others mouth. Things heated up quickly as they forgot themselves and really started going at it.

Buffy - "That's so hot."

Dawn, enjoying the show – "That's conflict resolution at its finest, baby."

Willow and Faith crashed against a wall as they started groping themselves and tearing their clothes slightly.

Dawn, frowning – "Or maybe it's still conflict."

Faith, pulling back to breathe – "Why the hell didn't we do this before?"

Willow – "I have no idea. I want you inside me, now."

Dawn, laughing – "Wow, this is fucking awesome. But we should take this upstairs in case Joyce comes back."

There was a knock at the door and the kissing girls stopped what they were doing and looked suitably embarrassed.

Buffy, opening the door – "You jinxed it, Dawn."

But in the other side wasn't Joyce but Kennedy.

Buffy – "Kennedy?"

Kennedy, looking very freaked out – "Buffy, you have to let me in."

That was a phrase that made Buffy freeze for a few long seconds. Then she slammed the door shut and pressed herself against it to keep it that way.

Dawn – "Was that….?"

Buffy, trembling – "Oh yeah."

Willow – "Vampire?"

Buffy – "Yup."

Faith – "Oh shit."

Willow – "Relax. As long as we don't invite her in, we're perfectly safe."

Dawn – "Wait. Why are we scared of her? She'll just be like all those other slayers who were turned into vampires, right?"

Faith – "Wasn't that supposed to be impossible? Like it was something Mister Shadow caused or something?"

Willow – "Actually, you're right. I remember hearing something about that. Slayers can't be vampires."

Kennedy, on the other side of the door – "I've got a soul! Let me in!"

Buffy, opening the door a crack to whisper back – "I'd rather not take the risk."

Dawn – "Don't talk to her! Remember that time I invited Harmony in? I said something like, I'd like to see you come in here and say that, and that acted like an invite."

Kennedy pushed the door open the door and walked in, much to the surprise of the other girls.

Dawn – "What the hell1?"

Willow – "Dawn, you idiot, you invited her in!"

Dawn – "How?"

Willow – "You said the exact same words you used to invite the last vampire in."

Dawn – "Oh come on."

Kennedy – "Guys, you don't need to be afraid of me but there's something you really need to know."

Faith – "B. Crossbow. Couch."

Before Buffy even took a step towards the couch, Kennedy grabbed Buffy by the arm and gently pushed her back into the dining room with the rest of the girls.

Kennedy – "I'm serious. You don't know what's going on. Uh, did you guys hear that?"

Willow, still backing away – "Hear what?"

Kennedy – "Oh crap, they're here!"

The door slammed shut, the curtains closed and plumes of smoke billowed up around the girls, trapping them in place as they formed into dull grey figures with bulletproof masks on.

Four of the figures grabbed Kennedy while it took only one to handle the rest of the girls.

One of the figures, talking through a robotic sounding voice manipulator – "You shouldn't have run, Kennedy."

A robot voice from the top of the stairs - "Top story is clear."

A robot voice from the kitchen - "Basement clear."

Another robot voiced person, holding Buffy in a chokehold – "What do we do with these?"

Robot voice in charge – "I guess we should take them too."

A figure next to them – "Why?"

The one holding Willow – "It'll be fun."

The house filled with smoke surprisingly quick and then the smoke quickly disappeared, revealing an entirely different scene. The floor was carved stone, as were the walls and there were several other people in the room. None of them seemed surprised by their appearance and a few of them looked like watchers.

Then the robot voiced commandos took off their masks to reveal a bunch of rather hot looking girls, including an alternate of Buffy who had red hair.

The Redhead Buffy, as Kennedy struggled against her captors – "Hi, we didn't get formally introduced before. I'm Daphne."

Buffy – "Uh, hi. Wait, aren't you dead?"

Daphne – "Medically maybe. But not in any way that matters."

Buffy - "Wait, how the hell did you get into my house? You weren't invited."

Daphne - "Invitations are for vamps. We're all sucks, we don't need them."

The unknown girls kept struggling with Kennedy until something was latched around her neck and she stopped struggling immediately.

Kennedy, confused – "H-Hey! What did you do?"

A vampDawn, wearing way too much tight leather – "It's a control collar. It lets me play you like a puppet."

Dawn – "I know we might die here but I just want to say, that leather really looks good on me."

VampDawn, rolling her eyes – "Relax, we're not going to kill you."

Daphne – "At least not in any way that matters."

Kennedy, angry – "I disagree. This sort of death matters."

A leather clad version of Willow, wrapping her arms around Kennedy – "Aww, the fresh meat is making funny whining sounds. We should gag her."

Willow blinked at her vampire alternate and realized that she recognized them. The vampire looked back and was pleasantly surprised too.

VampWillow – "Fluffy me?"

Willow – "Oh my god. What are you doing here?"

Buffy – "Isn't that the vampire you summoned that one time?"

Willow – "I think it is. But I sent her back to home. What's she doing here?"

VampDawn – "We found her and a Xander in this really stupid dimension. Thought we'd train her to be a good guy but she's proving hard to tame."

VampWillow, smirking – "But you sure enjoy trying, don't you?"

VampDawn, smirking back – "It has its moments."

VampDawn, to the humans – "I've got a few other vampires too like – HEY! Faith, stop that! What did I tell you? That's my girlfriend!"

VampDawn growled a little as the rest of the vampires under her control caught up with her. There was Spike, Tara looking absurdly hot in a string bikini and a Faith who had tattoos covering one of her arms and part of her neck. VampDawn lightly slapped the heavily tattooed Faith on the arm with a cross look.

Dawn, trying her best to look stern – "Be nice or there's no dessert. I mean it."

VampFaith, sneering – "Yes, mom."

Spike, sheepishly - "Buffy? Oh hey, it's been a while."

Buffy – "Spike? You're our Spike, aren't you?"

Spike – "Yup. I got nabbed with Kennedy. Been down here ever since, controlled by bossy boots here."

VampDawn, with a lot of emphasis – "Spike is really popular down here. He sort of like a celebrity. Even though he only killed a couple of slayers, he fought with a whole bunch of them."

VampFaith, snorting – "He's more hit than miss."

Willow – "Is someone going to start explaining stuff?"

Queen Buffy – "That would be me."

Queen Buffy walked onto the scene, wearing a dressing gown and a big grin. Her vampire girlfriend, Willow, kept pace next to her wearing some metal studded leather that made a distracting scrunch-scrunch sound as she walked.

Queen Buffy, to the grey suit wearing team of slayers – "You can leave now. I've got this."

Queen Buffy, appraising Kennedy – "It doesn't matter how many times we go through this, new slayers always seem to find a way to escape."

Evil Willow – "Maybe you should stop turning them. That'd solve it."

Buffy – "How are you still alive? I was told your dimension ceased to exist. Yours and the gender bender verse too. It was something about Mister Shadow creating them."

Queen Buffy rolled her eyes – "No, that's not what happened at all."

The not quite so evil VampWillow – "All the slayer vamps and all their kids were thrown back here when Mister Shadow croaked. But our dimension didn't die. It just sort of moved addresses. It wasn't in the same place so when you looked for it with the mirror gates, you couldn't find it."

Willow – "That doesn't explain how you found us. If your dimension moved, you should've lost track of us too."

Queen Buffy – "We tracked your dimension by your Buffy. We had to work quickly, before she washed off that spell we painted on her. But it worked, so here we are. Now I'd like to talk to you about something I want you to think about. I know it's a big decision and you'll automatically want to say no but hear me out."

Buffy, deadpan - "We don't want to be turned."

Queen Buffy, smiling – "Man, I'm quick."

Faith – "That's what this is about? You want to turn us?"

Queen Buffy – "Normally, we would wait until you die but let's be honest. You could stay alive for another fifty years. By then you'd start growing old and decrepit and cranky and wonder why the hell we didn't turn you when you were young and beautiful. So here we are, saving you from all that. Aren't we nice?"

Buffy – "I don't mean to your offend you and your dark gift but we're not interested."

Heavily tattooed Faith – "Speak for yourself, bubbles. You can bet I'm mulling it over."

Faith, cringing – "No, I'm not. I'm fine with aging gracefully."

Queen Buffy – "I hope you know that we don't offer to turn just anyone."

Heavily tattooed Faith – "In my experience, they forget the whole offer part and just turn you."

Kennedy – "Yeah."

Queen Buffy – "Those were extenuating circumstances. You know what, Dawn, can you shut them up for the rest of this conversation? I'm tired of the peanut gallery."

Dawn, glumly – "Okay."

Queen Buffy – "I know how to change your minds. Faith, other me, been enjoying your vacation?

Buffy – "No world on our shoulders, no patrols, no freaky nightmares. It's been really great until now."

Queen Buffy - "Miss being a slayer yet?"

Buffy – "Sure. I think we both miss it. But we can't play slayer anymore because we're kind of below average in strength now."

Faith – "Speak for yourself, bandy legs."

Buffy – "Yeah, okay, Faith might be stronger than me now but it's not like we can go back to being super powered."

VampWillow, finding it funny – "She sounds so sure of herself."

Buffy – "Being a vampire doesn't compare to being a slayer."

Queen Buffy, to her girlfriend – "I'm surprised human you hasn't figured it out yet."

Willow – "Figured what out yet?"

VampWillow – "The numbers don't work. How many slayers do you we think we have?"

Buffy – "You've got a heap of them. Maybe a few thousand."

Queen Buffy – "A few thousand sounds about right. And you do know that I'm only a few days over eight hundred years old, right? Since I was the one who started slayers getting turned in my dimension, how would I have so many? If you work it out, that'd mean I'd be turning two or three slayers a year and the average slayer lifespan would be around four months. But that's not the case. So the million dollar question is how are we doing it?"

Faith, gasping – "Kinky sex!"

Queen Buffy, disappointed – "Damn, who told you?"

Human Willow – "What?! You mean she's right?"

VampWillow – "It's not just kinky sex."

Queen Buffy – "I like to think kinky sex is the active ingredient."

VampWillow, sounding a bit tired – "When a slayer vamp turns a potential slayer, they become an actual slayer when their blood is mixed."

Willow – "That's not kinky sex at all."

Queen Buffy – "Technically, no. But you can totally have sex while doing that. It's sooo good."

Buffy – "So most of the slayers you have down here were never slayers when they were alive?"

Queen Buffy – "You got it."

Buffy – "That's interesting and all but here's a question. What if we don't agree to get turned? What will you do? Kill us?"

Queen Buffy, laughing – "No. We'll just look into your eyes and you'll wake up tomorrow morning with a hangover and big gap in your memory. We'll even put you to bed if you like."

VampWillow - "But that's boring."

Queen Buffy - "Valid point."

VampDawn, with a titter – "We could totally make it look like they had crazy group sex too."

Dawn, laughing – "That'd be so hilarious."

Willow – "We're totally not doing that."

Both Dawns – "Spoilsport."

Queen Buffy – "But we don't have to worry about that yet. I'm still trying to sell you on the idea of getting turned."

Buffy – "It's a big thing to ask. If you turn us, you won't let us go home, will you?"

Queen Buffy – "No. Definitely not. The less people who know about us, the better. But it's not like you'll be leaving your entire life behind. You're already friends with Kennedy and Spike."

Spike, slightly disagreeing – "Friends?"

Queen Buffy – "And we're okay with turning Dawn and Willow too."

Buffy – "But it's not like they'll become slayers."

Queen Buffy - "I'm guessing not. Although we have found Dawn's that have slayer powers, they're pretty rare. They'll turn into what we like to call kiddies or toys. For the most part, they'll be expected to act in support roles. Dawn is unusually good for taming any evil vampires we find and at hypnotic interrogation. So we'll probably use her for that. While Willow has a gift for magic and research, so not much will change for her if she joins us."

Dawn, pointing to her leather wearing alternate – "Would I get to wear clothes like that?"

Buffy – "Dawn! Have you lost your last marble? You're not seriously considering this, are you?"

Dawn - "I sort of am."

Buffy – "What about the whole undead thing?"

Dawn – "It's not like we haven't all died before."

Willow – "Speak for yourself. Some of us are more careful with our lives."

Faith – "Some of us are chicken."

Buffy, to Faith – "Don't tell me you're thinking about this too."

Faith – "Sorta. Yeah. Think about it, B. It'd be like old times, except you'd actually be getting laid. I don't see a downside."

Buffy, arguing – "We'll be vampires, controlled by evil me to fight interdimensional wars. We'll be thrown on the frontline as soon as we're turned."

Queen Buffy – "For the record, you won't be put on the frontline for at least a year. The most you'll be doing is patrolling and cleanup, like what we're going to do with Kennedy. To stop her running for help, we're going to chuck her on Buddy's world to help clean up the zombies there. In between zombie duty, she'll be trained and taught and maybe spanked a little if she's too much trouble."

Kennedy – "What?"

VampDawn – "Don't worry. We're not serious about the spanking. It's done in a completely unserious way. It's all in good fun."

Queen Buffy – "And after her tour of duty is up, we'll give her an assignment, probably overlooking a hellmouth somewhere. She'll have access to the new technology and magics that we're getting from other dimensions. She'll be part of a team of other slayers, with support ready from the rest of us. Or she might join a team of specialists, like those that just recaptured her. But I'm not looking to use her as cannon fodder. She's a slayer and that means something to me, like it should to you."

Buffy mused this over slowly but wasn't won over yet.

Buffy – "Why don't you tell us what you're doing anyway? I don't want to join your jamboree then find out that we're killing Christmas."

Queen Buffy – "In most dimensions, we're simply slaying all the vampires and human hating demons while recruiting those potential slayers who are too old to be called naturally. We're also exploring the different dimensions too. Like just the other day, we found a really wacky one."

VampWillow – "Oh yeah. That was fun."

Queen Buffy – "Do you remember River Tam, that brainwashed psychic girl? We found a dimension where every single girl looks just like her. It's more than a bit odd."

VampWillow – "But the porn there is awesome."

Queen Buffy – "It's a pity that none of them are slayers and we really don't need that many crazy psychics. Which reminds me, one of the great things that we've found is that some dimensions that don't even have slayers, vampires and demons and all that, they still have potential slayers. We've already gotten over forty new slayers that way. And if you think we're evil for invading other dimensions, you better believe that we're not the only ones doing it."

Buffy – "You mean like the scourge?"

Queen Buffy – "Well, yes. The scourge is one group we're looking at but we've come across another armies of slayers moving between dimensions, taking them over."

The four humans seemed surprised by that.

Faith – "Really? Awesome."

Queen Buffy – "No, not awesome. We've managed to avoid detection by them so far but they're not undead. They're normal slayers. We're pretty sure they'll try to kill us. Just like Kennedy tried to kill us. That's when she had a little accident, impaled herself on something and we sorta had to turn her or she'd suffocate on her own blood and die."

Buffy – "Why? Just explain you've got a soul."

Queen Buffy – "That might not cut it this time. You remember Wolfram and Hart, how we brainwashed all the lawyers, killed their circle of thorn guys and turned their liaison when they were out of town? They're pissed about that and this other bunch of slayers seem to be working for them."

Buffy – "They're evil?"

Queen Buffy – "We're not exactly sure about that yet but they're very scary."

VampWillow – "And they seem intent on destroying hellmouths instead of living in them. We wouldn't mesh."

Queen Buffy – "They're not the only army of slayers we've found either. Though, most don't seem to be invading other dimensions. Actually, the amount of weird things we've found is kind of staggering."

VampDawn, hugging her bikini wearing Tara – "We still haven't found an evil Tara."

VampTara, smirking – "That's making the rest of us look bad."

Willow, blinking – "Wait, that Tara isn't evil?"

VampDawn – "No, she's my girlfriend."

Willow – "Then why is she wearing that control collar? And what's with the bikini?"

Tara, embarrassed – "It's kind of fun."

VampWillow, ignoring all that – "I think the most screwed up thing we've found is where Angel and Spike were never vampires but somehow they were born in the present and go to school with the rest of us."

Queen Buffy – "Yeah, that was cringe worthy. Though, the world where Faith kills me comes a close second. That mayor snake thing was hard to take down."

The heavily tattooed Faith snarled at Queen Buffy, which made her smile a little.

Queen Buffy – "Also, in most dimensions, when a slayer is turned, they don't keep their souls. Faith here is a case in point. Even after giving her soul back to her, she's still a problem childe."

VampWillow – "We should probably tell them about the arachnid threat."

Queen Buffy – "You're right."

Dawn, sound a little scared – "Arachnids? Like Spiders?"

Queen Buffy – "There is a type of demon we've found that's been invading dimensions for what seems to be a very long time. They vary a lot but they tend to look like a giant fleshy jelly beans with multiple eyes and an arm like tongue which they can suck people's brains out with. They tend to have psychic powers. Telekinesis is common with them too."

Dawn – "Eww, gross. But that doesn't sound like a spider at all."

Queen Buffy – "The giant brain creatures can brainwash other creatures. One of their favorite slaves are these bugs with lots of legs and giant snapping mouths. Hence why we call them the arachnid threat."

Buffy – "Are those things worse than the cockroach demons?"

Queen Buffy – "Nowhere near as stealthy. In some worlds, they grow huge. In others, not so much but they're still a threat in large numbers. But the brain creatures are the real problem. Unlike most demons, they can be very tech savvy."

VampWillow – "We should show them the city 17 footage."

Queen Buffy, to VampWillow – "Maybe we should. We do that with most of the potentials. Actually, no. I think they'll believe us on this."

Queen Buffy, to the humans – "We've already found them causing trouble in over thirty nearby dimensions. In some, they have technology that rivals Atlantis. In others they're slumming it. We want to take them out before they get too organized and start networking between all the different dimensions they're in. Also, taking them out seems like it would give us the biggest bang for our buck. We could focus mostly on the scourge but we wouldn't get much out of it. We could focus on Wolfram and Hart but they're friends with some upper level demons which could cause us some major problems."

VampWillow – "Plus they have their own army of slayers and they're not the biggest threat out there."

Queen Buffy – "There's that too. But here's the thing. The Arachnids, unlike the Scourge and Wolfram and Hart, are an open threat. They face humanity head on in almost every dimension they're in. Taking them out will be a fast way to get a lot of human allies."

Dawn – "Hey, could be I a succubus instead of a vampire?"

Buffy – "Dawn!"

Dawn – "What? It's a reasonable question."

Queen Buffy – "We're only turning slayers into succubae at the moment. It's for logistics purposes only. Vamps are much easier to feed than sucks."

Dawn – "Aww."

VampDawn, chuckling – "I'm sure you'll make a great vampire instead."

Dawn, eyeing up the heavily Tattooed Faith – "Could I at least choose which Slayer turns me?"

VampFaith – "That sounds like my kind of fun."

VampDawn – "I don't know if she'd be a good mom."

VampFaith – "Shutup, stop cockblocking me."

Dawn – "Actually, I think Harmony might be better."

Willow – "Harmony!?"

VampDawn – "She's not bad but you do know she's a super powered nymphomaniac, right? She's absolutely certifiable in bed."

Dawn, trying not to look too enthusiastic – "I'm sure I'll manage."

Queen Buffy – "One down, three to go."

Faith – "I'm down with this too."

Buffy – "Really?"

Dawn, squeezing Willow around the waist – "Come on, I'm sure we can find you're a nice slayer. I know you've always had a thing for Kennedy."

Kennedy – "She has?"

Willow, very uncomfortably – "Maybe. Just a little thing. Oh, alright. I'll let Kennedy turn me into an evil skank. You win."

All eyes slowly turned to Buffy who didn't want to give in to peer pressure.

Queen Buffy – "Did I mention that we've got a killer Pilates class down here? You'll enjoy it."

Buffy – "This is a big decision."

Queen Buffy – "Yeah, you can't just keep your receipt and give this dress back after a special event. But it's really not bad. You'll get to look sexy forever and immortality doesn't weigh down on your soul anywhere near as much as Angel would let you believe."

Faith - "Come on, B. For once in your life, stop being such a pussy."

Buffy, smirking – "I thought you liked my pussy."

Faith, chuckling – "I more than like it and you know it."

VampWillow, slapping her forehead – "We totally forgot to mention that the sex is so much better when you're undead."

Queen Buffy – "Oh yeah, we totally did."

Buffy – "Alright, I'm sold."

Faith hugged Buffy and jumped up and down with her.

Queen Buffy, beaming with joy – "Great. Now we just need to find you the right mommies."

VampWillow, slapping Queen Buffy lightly on the tush – "There's plenty of time for that. Let's have some fun with them first."

Queen Buffy, smirking – "Yeah. Let's do that."

O-O-O-O

Five minutes later

Faith, talking childishly - "Who's the cutest baby in the world? You are. Joobie joobie joobie."

The baby Faith had cradled in her arms let out of string of happy gurgles and her heart melted.

Faith – "It's so adorable. I never thought I'd say this but I want one."

A completely different VampFaith laughed as she boiled some water with a baby bottle in.

VampFaith – "You might say different after a month of losing sleep. My little Lambie has some pipes on her. Luckily, my baby daddy helps out."

While the two Buffys looked over Faith's shoulders at the baby, Willow stood back and frowned.

Willow – "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I was thinking of fun."

VampLilah, VampFaith's childe – "I'm with you there."

VampFaith – "You two are such sourpusses."

Faith – "But I bet they're both great in bed."

VampFaith looked up from the thermometer she had in hot water and gave Faith an odd look.

VampFaith - "Can you not talk about sex with Willow around my kid, please? That'd scar anyone for life."

Faith gasped with laughter as she gently jiggled the baby a little – "Wow. I thought you vamps slept around."

VampFaith – "We do. But not with Red."

VampWillow – "And I wouldn't go near Faith in a million years."

Faith – "Buffy. I think we need to teach these vamps how to be proper perverted sex fiends."

Buffy - "I think you're right. But first, coochie coochie coo."

Buffy tickled the baby's stomach and it let out another burst of adorable gurgling while the undead in the room looked on in wonder and amazement.

O-O-O-O

End of EVERYTHING!!

No seriously, that's it. Here is some authors notes.

I started writing fanfics not so much because I had a burning desire to write down stories I had buzzing around in my head but because I like characters and situations and feelings and how they all fit together to make stories that people like to read. I also like Joss Whedon's stuff. Not only is it entertaining but I don't find myself confused by the actions of the characters so much compared to other shows. Also, while I don't relate to any particular character in BTVS, I find myself relating to most of them a little, which is more than I can say for most shows too.

Needless to say, I've deviated crazily from BTVS canon and learnt a lot about stories, not as much as I like about characters and perhaps a little about myself. But I think I've done this enough. Now I think I'll go do something else for a while.

Also, I would like to thank Howard Russell for his unceasing support. It meant a lot to me. And if you got this far, Kudos. That's an achievement.


End file.
